


After The Spotlight Fades

by prelude_to_midnight



Series: Of Ringmistresses & Remains [1]
Category: Wooden Overcoats (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Bisexuality, Character Development, F/F, First Kiss, Getting Together, Internalized Homophobia, Intimacy, Mutual Pining, Pining, Romance, Slow Burn, background georgie/jennifer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:20:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 42,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22294690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prelude_to_midnight/pseuds/prelude_to_midnight
Summary: When another tragic death strikes the Piffling Traveling Circus, Marlene once again finds herself in Funn Funerals. Although only there for business, her reappearance in Antigone's life sets off everything she had been trying to repress since her overly dramatic confession at the theater.Moment by moment she finds herself drawn to the ringmistress and can no longer hide away in the shadows of her mortuary, no matter how dearly she once desired to do so.
Relationships: Antigone Funn & Rudyard Funn, Antigone Funn/Marlene Magdalena, Eric Chapman & Antigone Funn, Georgie Crusoe & Antigone Funn
Series: Of Ringmistresses & Remains [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1760296
Comments: 36
Kudos: 43





	1. Chapter 1

“‘Til next time, creepy girl!” had been the last thing the ringmistress said to her before disappearing in a cloud of smoke. 

As time passed by, she had watched her across the room at the wedding of the mayor and the reverend. All the evening she had longed to approach her, knowing better than to do so. Those nights grew to become her biggest regrets, often she chastised herself for having been so foolish. She had left the island for a while searching for new performances, her return was met with great fanfare. Returning with sword swallowers, fire breathers, rogue jugglers, human blockheads and the like; no clown she had come across could have ever replaced the ones she had lost. 

The new world of wonders showcased the finest talents Marlene Magdalena had gathered. It was true that her prices had risen, but possessing such talents required some compensation for their genius. Each night she hoped that the new performances would draw in her creepy girl, she scanned the rows of seats, each time disappointed and fearful that she may never see her face again.   
A campaign of shock and awe drew the crowd in for the final act of fire breathers. The trio stood front and center wearing glittering costumes adorned red and orange, the tallest one seemed more closed in on himself than the other two. Their fires burst and danced, the audience gasped in great shock at the blowing heat. The tallest one shook, hesitating and unable to execute his performance as he had done before. Marlene shot him a glare, cracking her whip, she nodded to the crowd. He ran from the tent, the performance only saved by the two remaining fire breathers.   
As they all stood in front of the crowd and bowed, they were thanked with a grand applause. Marlene raised her arms and executed a final bow. She leaned to one of the fire breathers, commanding her to find their cowardly friend. 

Marlene sat slumped in the first row of the main tent, her face propped in her hands. She glared disinterested at the trio. The tallest one, a thin man with a handlebar mustache and wire rimmed glasses stepped to the front. The plume of fire blown from his mist of fuel was pathetic, the ringmistress’s matches could have done a better job and she told him so. Embarrassed, the man tried again. The flames that burst forward were pitiful excuses, he apologized to the increasingly irritated ringmistress; upon his third failure she pounced from her chair with a loud crack of her whip. She shouted at him that he was pathetic, that his performance was worthless, adding nothing to the other two performers. She made it clear that he was obstructing the beauty that could be their performance. The trio fell speechless, not used to such harsh leadership. The ringmistress turned on her heels without another word, absently cracking her whip as she left the tent.  
Talk of the incident spread quickly around the performers’ caravans. As they gathered for dinner, they whispered and chattered among each other, each story more fabricated than the other. The jugglers told the aerialists that she whipped him directly, the contortionists heard that she threatened to set him on fire herself if he did not improve. Patrick, known around the grounds as Marlene’s favourite, dismissed the preposterous stories. Silence fell over the tables as quickly as the gossip had risen, for fear was the colour of all that they wore as the ringmistress arrived to dinner. 

The sun fell like a guillotine, the performers dispersed back to their caravans.   
All except one.   
Standing by himself in the tent, the tallest fire breather figured all he needed to do was more fuel to make a bigger fire, and then the ringmistress would like him again like she did when she first invited them to her circus.   
Tragedy struck when he tried to take on the flamed plume. For scorching his throat, he fell to the ground as a small fire miserably burned him away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should note this fic is fairly Antigone-centric, but as the story progresses and I write more parts to it, Marlene will be explored a lot more as well.


	2. Chapter 2

Grateful as they were that the fire did not spread over night, the performers gathered gravely around the tent as the other two fire swallowers laid a sheet over him. Their ringmistress stood by them, unable to bring herself to lead their mourning. Patrick attempted to offer her her throne, but she shook her head. Footsteps echoed into the otherwise quiet tent, Marlene picked her head up to see none other than Eric Chapman. 

“I did not request your services.” She said coldly. 

“I know,” He said in a sincere tone, “but I’m the only one with a proper refrigeration unit.” 

Marlene winced slightly, remembering the decaying clowns strewn around the dilapidated Funn home. Eric continued, informing her of what she already knew, that Patrick had been unable to get ahold of anyone at Funn Funerals. He suggested that she go to them in person and assured her that he would hold onto the body until Rudyard and Antigone could prepare it.  
She nodded solemnly. Eric heard the gossip of the performers as he hauled the body away. He wanted to try to comfort her, to tell her it was not her fault but Marlene had already walked away. She waited until the sun dropped slowly under the horizon before she found herself at the doorstep of Funn Funerals. She hesitated, toying with the idea to just have Chapman do it. Taking a deep breath, she adjusted her top hat at a jaunty angle and stepped inside. 

Rudyard Funn stood in the foyer, turning the pages of a large yellow book in frustration. As the ringmistress walked in, he slammed the book closed, tossing it on a wooden table that was pushed against the wall. He carefully asked how he could help her. 

“I am here to arrange a funeral.”

“Oh, erm, excellent.”

“The one they call Chapman has the body,” She said, Rudyard sneered, wondering why the ringmistress was there if Chapman had it. “No one answered the calls my strongman put in.”

“I’m sorry, our phone is cut off.” He said pointing at the black rotary phone on the wooden table. 

“I have a particular request, I,” she cleared her throat, “I would like to speak to your sister.” 

He glanced down to his shirt pocket for a moment where Madeleine was tucked, she squeaked him advice and he finally said “I’ll see if she’s available.”  
Gesturing for her to follow, Marlene stood near the mortuary door like she did all that time ago. He knocked on the cellar door, footsteps grew louder until Antigone cracked the door open. 

“What? I have told you time and time again to not interrupt me when I’m embalming.” She hissed.

“We’ve got another funeral!” He grinned, it quickly collapsed as he told her that the ringmistress wanted to speak with her.  
Antigone sighed deeply, closing her eyes. Marlene had been on her mind since the night of the play, her confession had stuck to her, mute and restless like a gnawing worm. Biting the inside of her cheek, she opened the door and stepped out in the path of the ringmistress. Rudyard pressed passed the two in order to avoid whatever ordeal was about to ensue. Madeleine tried to crawl out of his pocket to eavesdrop, but he kept her in place as he entered his room. 

“Am I interrupting you?” Marlene asked, trying to catch her gaze. 

“Quite frankly, yes,” Antigone said bitterly, “but I suppose I wouldn’t mind speaking to you once I am done.” 

“Then I shall wait right here, creepy girl.” 

Antigone returned to her work, slamming the door as she descended. She grabbed the scalpel and began her incision on the corpse. Her usually steady hand shook slightly, and she began to rant to no one who was alive to listen. 

“Why now? Why come in when I’m embalming? She’s just going to remember those dead clowns strewn around the house and me covered in fluid and UGH-” she grunted, a spurt of blood burst from the artery she sliced open, hitting her in the face. Her attempt to wipe away the blood only smeared it across her cheek. Shoving the machinery into place, she flipped on the embalming machine, continuing her rant to the corpse and violently stabbing its stomach with a trocar as she went.  
Once she was done, she examined the corpse. She quietly apologized for being so aggressive and took a step back. Pressing her back against the large cremation retort, she knew Marlene was waiting for her, but figured that if she wanted so badly to talk to her, then she could wait a bit longer.  
The cellar door stood menacingly above her, an easily broken barrier between her and the ringmistress. What was left unsaid crept up the stairs and wrapped itself around Marlene, tightening its grip and cementing where she stood. Antigone trudged up the stairs, slowly creaking open the door. Marlene leaned against the opposite wall, fiddling with the fraying gold rope of her jacket. She stopped once she saw Antigone and stood up properly. 

“So, you have a funeral for us?” She asked, closing the door behind her and trying to rub the smeared blood away from her face. 

“Yes, one of the fire breathers, it was…”

“Very tragic, I imagine.”

“Yes.” 

“Rudyard said you had a request?”

“I only wanted to have a moment to myself with him before you embalm him.”

“Oh, of course, that sounds fine.” 

Marlene nodded, quietly thanking her. Antigone pressed herself against the door, the ringmistress remaining across from her, not daring to take a step forward. 

“I was almost certain you hated us.” Antigone said. 

“Why would I hate you?”

“Well, because of everything that’s happened.”

“I do not believe I could ever hate you,” Marlene admitted, pausing for a moment. “Besides, this is just business.” 

She went on to explain her request and what she wanted for the funeral, forewarning her of the condition of the fire breather’s body. Antigone launched into a detailed description in explicit detail of the worst bodies she had dealt with, all decay and molding flesh, missing limbs and smashed in faces. Perhaps it was her own attempt to make the ringmistress think she was disgusting and drive her away. That way, Antigone would not have to deal with how she felt. Instead of disgust, Marlene listened intently. She was, in fact, very disgusted, but hearing her speak so passionately delighted her. There was a way her eyes lit up when she was able to freely talk about her work, she spoke with her hands, making grand gestures to mimic the time she slammed full force onto a wiring gun on a particularly difficult jaw.  
She had so many questions to ask her, but found no room to be able to talk. After Antigone had finished describing another horror show of a body, Rudyard emerged from his room and interrupted them, telling Antigone it was probably better if she saw the body after she was done. His sister shot back at him, reminding him that they - as morticians, were to fulfill any request they could to help people in their mourning process. He pressed his fingers to his temples, informing Antigone that not everyone was like her and therefore not everyone could have the stomach to handle such a case as this and that it would be better for the ringmistress to wait. They argued as if Marlene was not standing right by them, she broke the argument, telling both of them she could handle it. Madeleine squeaked something to Rudyard, and he let the subject go, praying that Antigone would not lose the funeral. 

They lingered on each other for a moment, and Marlene could not say anything more except that she would see her overmorrow for the arrangements. She walked home with her hand pressed to her stomach, having to give her creepy girl credit for being such a detailed and well spoken story teller, but she could not get the image of decaying flesh in all its wide varieties out of her mind.


	3. Chapter 3

Scurrying around the dim mortuary, Antigone cleaned the slightly rusted table and prepared her trocar. Her excitement quickly drained once she opened the door to reveal Eric Chapman standing before her. She allowed him to bring the body into her mortuary, helping haul it down. Dismissing him the second the body was on her table, she ignored his inquiries about the ringmistress. As she turned away from him to prepare the embalming fluid, he asked her if she knew the extent of the man’s story and told her what the strongman had told him about the incident. He returned upstairs and left, passing the ringmistress along the way. 

“Marlene, hold on a moment, please.” He said. She stopped in her tracks, turning to him with a scowl on her face. “Are you sure you want to see the body now? It might be better if you wait until Antigone has fixed it properly, she’s excellent at that. It’ll be like he never burned his throat out.” 

Marlene brushed him off, telling him it was not his place to tell her how to mourn or grieve. He tried to clarify his intentions, but she continued to Funn Funerals, heading down to Antigone’s mortuary without knocking.  
Startled, Antigone pushed herself from the table, accidentally knocking a bottle of fluid onto her dress in the process. She let out a groan of disgust, her frustration grew at the sight of the ringmistress, demanding to know why she had not bothered to knock. Marlene hastily apologized, handing her a handkerchief. Antigone pulled at her dress to see the damage, but the stain would not stand out very much, as her dress was a faded black anyhow. She sighed, calming herself down. Leading Marlene to the table, she slowly removed the white cloth to reveal the corpse beneath. The ringmistress sucked in a breath, asking Antigone for a moment to herself. She backed away, watching her. 

So much of him had burned away. The fire had most certainly done its damage, his skin a scorched, gnarled almost blackened brown. Marlene took her hat off, the corner of her mouth twitched up in disgust. She grasped the side of the metal table, jerking away when she felt Antigone take her arm in an attempt to pull her away from the body. 

“Where are his glasses?” The ringmistress asked coldly. 

“Oh, uhm, Chapman must still have them.”

“Make sure he has them before you bury him.”

“I will.” 

Marlene stood back, her breathing was ragged as she refused to let herself cry over a person she hardly knew, she crossed her arms, staring daggers at the corpse laying before her. She heard Antigone tell her she should not think of it as her fault, but how could it have not been? She made a horribly misplaced sentiment, quietly saying that it was not like the ringmistress had been the one to put the flame in his mouth. How could she even begin to explain that it felt like she did? Antigone apologized, telling Marlene that she did not need to stay down in the mortuary if she did not want to. The ringmistress nodded and slowly trudged up the stairs, leaving the mortuary; she found Rudyard sitting at the kitchen table, absently sharing a piece of toast with a mouse. She leaned against the counter and began to pick at the wine coloured ribbon of her top hat. Rudyard periodically tried to start small talk with the ringmistress, but was only met with a threatening glare.

All the while downstairs Antigone began her work. She tied back her hair and having finished preparing the embalming fluid, she poured the neon pink concoction into the machine. She instinctively moved her scalpel to the lower neck near the collarbone. Hesitating and unable to find a non damaged artery in the neck area for her to drain the blood, she moved to the man’s wrist; slicing open the radial artery. She let the blood flow away down the drain, moving to attach the embalming machinery. As the fluid flowed through the body, she took her time to massage it, ensuring the fluid moved through it evenly. Taking a tin labeled “wound filler” from the tray, she filled the scorched cavity in the performer’s neck with the waxy pink substance, turning to pick up a wrapped block of wax. As she began to reform the neck, her skilled fingers shaping around the burnt skin, she realized that she did not know what the man looked like before. She sighed, removing the medical mask from her mouth and climbed the stairs.  
The mortuary door opening dissolved the tension between the ringmistress and her brother, she asked Marlene if she had a picture of the man, but she shook her head. Initially Marlene’s gaze was fixated on her, for this was the first time she had seen her face entirely. Her slender neck curving nicely to her jaw. Though the longer she stared the more she noticed how Antigone’s dress hung loosely to her frame, the dark circles under her eyes more prominent against her pale skin.  
She moved her gaze elsewhere and began to describe in detail what the man had looked like, from his skinny nose to his chinless neck. Antigone thanked her and returned to her work, replacing her medical mask. Shaping the wax around the ringmistress’s descriptions, she then plucked a coarse makeup brush from the tray alongside a smaller tin of viscous makeup. Padding at the discoloration and wax with the stubby brush, the wax was gradually covered up.  
Once she was done she called for the ringmistress to enter. Marlene raised her eyebrows, her mouth opened slightly- the man looked no different than if he were sleeping, no true hint of burned skin in sight. 

“You did an excellent job.” She said. 

Antigone thanked her and once again replaced the medical mask as she turned away, hoping it would hide her blushing face. It was a mostly thankless job, but when she received praise she stored it away in her heart. Antigone put her hair down, dragging her fingers through her knotted curls. Annoyed, her pulled her hair apart, trying to separate it to a decent look. Marlene gave her a concerned look, wincing slightly at the sound of torn knots. 

"I don't own a hair brush." Antigone said by way of explanation, although it was a lie, as Miss Scruple had given her a hairbrush for Christmas.

"That does not surprise me."

She held up a finger to Marlene and looked into the drawers next to her ancient sofa. She picked up the wooden brush and once again began tearing at her hair. Marlene tried to gently take her wrist, only for Antigone to jerk away from her. 

“Don’t touch me.” She said carefully, less like a warning, more like advice.

Marlene backed away, replacing her hat on her head. She thanked Antigone again and left quietly without even a proper goodbye, only saying she would see her at the funeral tomorrow. Antigone kept her back turned away until she heard the door close upstairs. Putting the brush away, she sat down on the sofa and buried her face in her hands.


	4. Chapter 4

The evening funeral was quiet. The twins stood next to each other, Rudyard tucked the money the ringmistress gave him into his inner coat pocket; Georgie was propped up on a shovel near them. The performers murmured among themselves how well Antigone had fixed the body. She pulled the ends of her hair, utterly pleased that her work was being given praise, especially by those from the circus. She lingered on the ringmistress. Her hat noticeably absent and black jacket adorned in gold details, she stood by the two remaining fire swallowers as they prepared their eulogy. She nodded at the two, a cue for them to commence.  
It was subtle but clear that they blamed the ringmistress’s aggression for his accidental death. Her hand clutched the whip at her side, ready to put them in their place if they stepped out of line. She huffed an irritated breath, disguising it as a sniffle.  
Georgie allowed the fire breathers to throw in the first two shovels of dirt. As she continued to fill in the grave, the other circus members slowly dispersed, soon leaving her, the Funns, and their ringmistress in the cemetery. Georgie’s eyes lingered on the ringmistress’s whip for only a short moment before she cleared her throat, patted down the final bits of dirt and turning back to the Funns. Marlene brought all of her hair around her shoulder, unable to bring herself to speak to Antigone. She watched her trail behind Georgie and Rudyard, leaving her alone in the cemetery.  
Taking a moment to herself, she looked down at the newly turned dirt. He could have been so much more, but now there would just be a cemetery, a stone that bore his name and his cold bones beneath the soil. Unintentionally crushing the freshly laid bouquet of flowers as she left, she returned to the main circus tent where all the acts were gathered. 

It was not the ringmistress’s idea, but she was grateful for it. She sat at an antique red vanity tucked tightly in her caravan, hand writing letters to every citizen in Piffling Vale, inviting them to the farewell show being put on by the remaining two fire breathers. Within each black envelope was sealed a small invitation and an entry ticket. Patrick had retrieved from the mayor a list of the names and addresses of everyone on the island, finding that some of the names were crossed out. Saving her creepy girl for last, she realized she could not recall her name, nor did she recall her brother’s. Racking her brain, She tried to remember if she had ever heard it, certain that she had but her memory came up short. She settled with simply starting with Dear Funn Funerals. Once finished, she scanned the list over and over, unable to find an address for Funn Funerals or a trace of anyone with the last name “Funn.” She stacked them all in a neat little pile and put them aside, intending to send them out in the post tomorrow. She kept the one for Funn Funerals separate, intending to deliver it herself. 

Over the week the circus trained exhaustively under the watchful eye of the ringmistress. The village was abuzz with talk of the invitations and show, all except Funn Funerals, who seemed to once again be forgotten. 

“Hey, did you guys get that letter from Marlene?” Georgie asked as she entered her work, kicking the door closed behind her as she read the letter. 

“What letter?” Rudyard asked. 

“The ones with the invitations to the circus.” Just as Georgie finished her sentence, a black envelope slipped in from under the door. Antigone picked it up, carefully tearing it open. She muttered the letter to herself, then handed it to Rudyard. 

“Well, I’m not going.” He said, tossing the card onto the table. 

“That’s fine then, there’s only one ticket in here.” Antigone said, holding up a crimson ticket. 

“There you have it.” He sighed. 

“Are you goin’ to go?” 

“I suppose I should, that was our funeral after all.”

Antigone entered her mortuary with the letter and ticket still in hand. Admiring the handwriting, she traced over the letters with her finger. She put the card on her shelf, leaning it against a murky glass bottle. 

The end of the week finally came and when it came time for the show, the residents of Piffling filed excitedly into their seats. Antigone had arrived somewhat late, scanning the audience, she spied Georgie alongside Jennifer, sharing a bag of popcorn and too wrapped up in each other to pay her any mind. Finding two empty seats in the front row next to Nigel and Desmond, they greeted her brightly as she sat down next to them, the two men smiling arm in arm. She looked around the tent for the ringmistress, hoping to catch a glimpse of her before the show started. A shadow loomed over her, she looked up hoping to see Marlene, but was met with Eric Chapman.  
He asked if the seat next to her was taken. She waved her hand to it, a signal that he could sit down. She continued to scuff her shoe, finding it strange that she was sitting here once again next to Eric and watching the circus, what with all that had transpired since then. The lights soon dimmed and the remaining fire breathers began their final send off to their lost friend.  
It was a kind of fire dance in which the stick was thrown and caught, and the flame, tossed and twirled, created sinuous shapes, circles and ever-moving patterns. The shining red costumes of the duo created a pleasing aesthetic alongside the red and orange fire. Even without the hypnotic movement of the flame, the dance was beguiling, its difficulties made to look so effortless. Antigone watched intently with astonishment in her eyes. She was so transfixed she had forgotten she was sitting next to Eric. The duo bowed with one final swoop of fire that extinguished the flames. Antigone could not help but give an enthusiastic standing ovation, the rest of the audience following her lead.  
Marlene sauntered to the front. She executed one last bow, thanked the crowd and bid them a good evening. The applause soon died down and in the chaos, Antigone slipped away from everyone.  
She paced around the back exit of the tent, hesitating to wait for the ringmistress. She walked a bit further away and sat on the unmoving carousel, eyes trained on the exit, hoping to catch the ringmistress before she left. 

“Hey.” A familiar voice sounded. 

“Chapman.”

“So, you really enjoyed yourself,” he said, sitting next to her on the platform. She did not reply to him and scooted away. He added, “It really was amazing.”

“Why did you come alone? I imagine you would have come with Lady Templar...or someone else.” She gestured vaguely. 

“Ah, she didn’t want to go.” He looked over at her, he traced where she was looking to, “Why are you hiding out here?”

“I’m not hiding. I’m just...waiting.”

“For the ringmistress?”

“Yes, I mean - no, shut up.” She hissed, dropping her head. 

“Well, it looks like she’s waiting for you.” He said. Antigone looked to where he was pointing, the ringmistress stood with the two fire breathers by the exit of the main tent. She caught her gaze and waved her over. Antigone walked towards them, saying nothing else to Chapman. 

Antigone clasped her hands together, letting the performers know how beautiful she thought the act was. They thanked her, and quietly thanked her more for the funeral. She pressed the tips of her index fingers together, telling them that she was sorry for their loss. As they talked, Marlene stood quietly next to them, glancing over at Chapman as he walked passed. The performer’s praised her reconstructive work, asking how she could have gotten everything so correct without a photo. Antigone gestured to Marlene giving the descriptive credit to her. The performers looked at her almost astonished, finding it quite remarkable that the ringmistress had even looked at anyone long enough to remember their appearance. A crass voice called Antigone and Marlene’s names, they both turned to see Sid Marlowe walking up to them, camera poised at the ready. “How about a photo for the newspaper?” 

The four of them all looked at each other for a moment and scrambled into place. The performers stayed next to each other posed next to Marlene. Antigone stood awkwardly next to her, greatly disliking photos she looked slightly up at the ringmistress while she looked towards the camera. A bright flash blinded them for a moment. Sid applauded the performers, commenting on how the photo would likely be on the front page by tomorrow. Once more the performers thanked Antigone while her heart sank and bid her a good night, leaving her alone with Marlene.

“Thank you for coming.” She said.

“Of course, it was the least I could do.”

Antigone asked Marlene how she had been doing at the same moment she asked her if she enjoyed the show. Marlene assured her she was fine, and things were simply fine, not mentioning she had re-written her invitation three times over. Antigone told her she thought the show was incredible but asked why there had only been one ticket. The ringmistress tilted her head a bit, suddenly remembering her brother, who she had shared a long awkward silence with a little over a week ago. She fabricated an excuse about her strongman helping her and how he must have made a mistake.

“Oh, I thought maybe it was because…” Antigone paused, shaking her head. “Nevermind.”

“No, tell me.”

“No, really, it’s ridiculous.” She insisted. 

Marlene adjusted her top hat, wanting to say more. Instead Antigone said she should be getting home. She quickly bid her a good night and walked briskly home, much too embarrassed to even admit to thinking that perhaps the ringmistress had wanted only her to come.


	5. Chapter 5

Marlene boiled herself a kettle of water on the small stove she had in her caravan as the morning sunlight ushered in a new day. While she picked out her tea, she heard a dull thud at her door. Outside she found the newspaper, still warm from the presses. She noticed that Antigone was not looking at the camera in the photo at all but rather she was looking at her. As she tried to decipher the expression on her face, the kettle began to whistle loudly. She set down the newspaper on her antique red vanity for a moment, pouring the water into a cup and dropped her tea bag into it. Sitting once more at her vanity, she carefully tore out the photo, tacking it to the side of the mirror underneath a vintage postcard of a circus elephant. A long piece of rope was draped over the corner of her mirror, she thought flowers would be a nice thank you. Pulling on her jacket and top hat, she headed to the Piffling marketplace to a particularly bitter woman at the flower stall. 

“Oh, god.” Petunia muttered to herself as the ringmistress approached.

Marlene sucked in a breath, and placed her hands on the stall table. “Hello, Petunia.” She said with a tempting smile. 

“I’m not falling for that again. What do you want?”

The ringmistress dropped the act. “I need an arrangement, one that expresses thanks.”

Petunia moved about her tin flower buckets, taking up a bunch of dark pink roses. She haphazardly wrapped them in newspaper and handed them to the ringmistress. Marlene dully asked her if that was really all she had. The florist rolled her eyes, asking what else she could possibly want. Marlene lifted and angled her head a bit, nodding towards tins of red flowers. She requested a subtle expression of love. Petunia narrowed her eyes, her fingers reaching for yellow carnations. The ringmistress slammed her hands on the table and leaned a bit forward. 

"Petunia. Do not sabotage this bouquet." She warned. 

Petunia retracted her hand from the yellow carnations, reaching instead for red ones. She smirked to herself, knowing such carnations were usually used for funerals. While the florist put together her arrangement, Marlene took a small square of cardstock from a stack near a small canvas sign on the table. She plucked a pen with a fake flower attached at the end from a bouquet of them and jotted down a quick note of gratitude. Hesitating to sign her own name, she instead wrote the two fire breathers down. Plastering a smile on her face, Petunia handed her the bouquet. Marlene handed her the note and asked if she did deliveries. 

"And where is this being delivered to?" Petunia asked as she tied the note to the side. 

"Funn Funerals." 

Petunia sighed defeatedly as Marlene handed her the money. As she walked off, Georgie zipped by on her moped, the florist tried calling after her but to no avail. 

With her hands full, Georgie kicked open the door to Funn Funerals. She dropped the grocery bags onto the kitchen table in front of Rudyard. The flowers arrived soon after by Petunia, looking bitter and in a great hurry. She thrust them into Georgie’s arms with an unconvincing greeting and turned more sharply than courtesy allowed. She also managed to catch the newspaper as it was thrown in her direction by Sid Marlowe, breathlessly cycling away with a strained greeting. She tossed the paper onto the table and set the basket of flowers down. 

“What are the flowers for?” Rudyard asked,

“I dunno, what’s the note say?”

“ _Thank you again for the funeral and for coming to the show, I hope to see you soon,”_ He read aloud, “About time we had some appreciation around here.” He said with a well pleased tone.

“I’m the one who went to show.” Antigone said appearing out of nowhere and snatching the note from Rudyard’s hand. 

“Well, maybe I would have gone if there had been a second ticket!” 

“I distinctly remember you saying you weren’t going anyhow.”

“Oh, please don’t start.” Georgie implored. 

She took up the newspaper, grinning as she pointed out the photo of Antigone on the front page. Rudyard grabbed the newspaper, skimming the article to see if he was mentioned at all. Madeleine poked her head out of his shirt pocket to read along with him. He groaned about how Antigone was mentioned by name and yet he was not. Antigone took the paper, making a cursory look of the actual text but more so focusing on the photo. She herself was not even sure what was running through her mind in that photo. 

Nonetheless she carefully rolled up the paper and tucked it under her arm. Taking up the flowers, she admired the vibrant shade of deep pink and bright red arrangement. She read over the note, finding something familiar in the way it was written but not being able to distinguish what. She distractedly told the two she would dry the flowers and preserve them better than keeping them in water, and descended into the mortuary. After hanging some of the flowers from a wooden beam above her, Antigone figured she could press some of them as well. She took a heavier book from her shelf - an antiquated text on funeral services - she opened the middle of the book to find a section about funereal flower arrangements. She examined at the sketches of flowers, looking at the red carnation in her hand. _Used as an expression of love._ Unable to wrap her head around the sentiment, she put some of the roses and carnations in various sections of the text and put it back on her shelf. Carefully she cut out the photo from the newspaper, she taped it onto a larger glass bottle, one she would intend to preserve the flowers in once they dried. Turning back to the note, she read it over and over. She picked up the circus invitation she had kept and compared the handwriting.

She was certain the shaky cursive on each note belonged to Marlene.


	6. Chapter 6

Alongside the old sofa Antigone often slept on came a dusty moth-bitten rug she had found in the attic and a small wooden table. What books she had not been able to fit onto her shelves with her embalming fluid she had stacked into piles on the floor. Though of course they were not all raunchy, among her stacks she had poetry and anthologies, non fiction and biographies just as abundant as her romance novels.  
She picked up a novel from the top of a stack and began reading to pass the time. Still she could not get the ringmistress off of her mind, she thought perhaps she could stop by and see her again, even if only to check on her while she mourned.  
As the days passed by, Antigone could not for the life of her focus on her book. She would read half a page and then get up, pacing around her mortuary, walking absently around her home. She formed her own fantasies around the ringmistress, only snapping back to reality when Rudyard asked if she was going to go to the cinema that evening. The sun began to descend over the horizon and Antigone pulled on her shoes and headed out for her weekly excursion to the Piffling Royale Cinema. 

“Hello, Herbert.” 

"Well, hello Miss Funn! How have you been?"

"I've been just fine."

"Well that's great, Miss Funn, you do look more alive! I think you’re really going to love tonight’s film, it’s a tragic tale of forbidden love." He said this as if the plot, if you could even call it that, of all the other films had not been.

Nevertheless, Antigone perked up, asking Herbert to tell her more. He refused to spoil it for her, handing her a ticket. She sat in her usual seat at the back row, the lights dimmed to total darkness as the film reel spun to life and the film flickered on screen. The story unfolded before her, an alleged tale of forbidden love focusing on two women. Antigone sunk lower into her seat.  
It did not matter that it was always Herbert in the booth, very Thursday evening Antigone became the projectionist. Her mind was like a laser beam light, laying out the scene before her. She could not help but see herself in the timid woman on screen. The two women before her stayed in shadows, kissing in lightless rooms. They were so devoted to each other even in the light, even when they were not alone Antigone could see how much they cared for each other. Antigone sat up properly in her seat, pressing her hand to her mouth, unsure of how to feel. She could have sworn that she heard the ringmistress’s name being moaned, she could have sworn she heard an utterance of her own.  
She wondered what the ringmistress had done to her as she had lost all her ability to think logically. Somebody had caught the two women kissing in a darkened alleyway. They called it unnatural, and they called it dirty. She stared at the screen, allowing familiar voices to replace the actors, words they said so loud and proud went right in her heart and never came out.  
Whatever else the film had in store Antigone did not find out as she rushed out of the cinema, ignoring Herbert’s worried calls for her. A faint scent of cigarette smoke tinged her nose, she followed it to the village’s useless bus stop to find only the local village hoodlums.

“Hey, Miss Antigone!” Baz said with a grin.

“What on earth are you three still out for?”

“We’re rebelling against our parents’ arbitrary curfews.” 

Roz flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Time is but an illusion, innit?” 

“You three should not be smoking.” Antigone said, snatching the cigarette from Baz's mouth and crushing it under foot. “How did you even get ahold of these? Are you really stealing from your parents?”

“No, that scary ringmistress gave ‘em to us.” Wez said, pushing up his glasses.

“Yeah, she was sitting here smoking and we asked her to bum us a few.” 

“You are kidding me.” Antigone sighed.

She made them stub out their cigarettes, and made them promise to never smoke again lest they find themselves in her mortuary with black lungs. The trio apologized, admitting that they did not even enjoy them, and only took them because it seemed like the sort of thing a beat artist would do. Antigone asked them if there was any other way for them to seem cool and rebellious that would not damage their health. With a chorus of "Ooh, discuss," they talked among themselves for a moment, and realized that being straight edge would be rebelling against societal pressures to smoke in order to be cool. 

“Do you three so happen to know where the ringmistress went?”

“No, she walked off while we were trying to talk to her after she gave us the cigarettes.” Roz said. 

Wez toed their discarded cigarettes on the ground. "She's not real fun to talk to for someone who runs a circus." 

Antigone told them to go home, that their parents were probably worried, she punctuated her parting by offhandedly telling them to be good. 

She could feel it in the cold night air, a kind of decay, a mourning pulling her towards the sand. She found her there, sitting under one of the streetlamps that lined the short pier, smoking, her top hat resting at her side. Antigone drew closer to her, more ready to scold her than anything else. 

“The sea is nice, no?” Marlene asked as Antigone came up from behind her. 

“Yes, it certainly is…” She said, somewhat startled that the ringmistress knew her presence without having turned around. She sat down next to her, her legs dangling above the water below. "How have you been holding up?"

Marlene took a long drag from her cigarette, letting the smoke curl away from her and out into the ocean air. “Good.”

Antigone then asked her why she thought it was a good idea to give three teenagers cigarettes. Marlene let out a short sigh, and muttered under her breath. She herself had begun to smoke as a teenager and was not thinking clearly at that moment, thinking that if she just gave the three what they wanted they would leave her alone, but they had not and had continued to bother her with questions about her circus and the artistry of the performers. It had irked the ringmistress how they talked about how face makeup was a mask that hid true emotions. Was it true what they say? Is it really all fun and games or was there something more hidden beneath the faces full of paint? She had let out an exasperated sigh, telling them that it was just a circus, a fun escape from the harsh realities and that could people just have fun for a time and be amazed by such artistry and not worry about metaphors for once?  
In the dim light of the streetlamps Antigone could see dark circles under Marlene’s eyes, her voice raspy and torn. She let the ashes of her cigarette fall into the water below, ignoring Antigone’s question of if she was actually alright. Her hand draped over her lap, the cigarette burning away to the filter. Having her next to her was enough to make her alright, she apologized for perpetuating the wrong type of rebellion onto the local village hoodlums. 

"I got your note, by the way." Antigone said. "The flowers were lovely, but… why did you sign it with the fire breathers and not yourself?"

“How are you sure it truly was me who sent the note?”

“Because your handwriting is the same on the invitation and also you literally signed it with 'the fire breathers.'”

Marlene's gaze fixed on the wider ocean, unanswering. Her mind muddled, she apologized for her behavior. “I am terrible with timing…” she muttered, mostly to herself.

“Marlene, you didn’t need to wait until an opportunity as tragic as that came up for you to come see me,” Antigone said, “you could have just visited me… I mean, if you wanted to."

The ringmistress took another drag from her cigarette, burning it almost down to the filter. "You could have done the same, come and attended a show."

Antigone opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. She was right, she could have seen her again if she had been brave enough, but hiding seemed like a better option than confronting how she felt. Marlene had given her time to think, but now that clock was ticking down and she needed to say what was left unsaid. 

“I would like to spend more time with you.” Marlene added.

“You need to give yourself time to mourn first.”

“I am fine!” She exclaimed, throwing her arms up. 

“Marlene.” Antigone picked at a random hole in her dress, simply her saying the ringmistress's name was enough for her to calm down.


	7. Chapter 7

Marlene grew impatient for time to pass by as all she wanted was for this supposed mourning process to end so she could see her again. She would take her to dinner eventually. Part of her still hoped she would see her in the circus audience, but her absence was always punctuated by the disappointed look on the ringmistress’s face that caused the performers to ponder who on earth she was eagerly searching for with such hope in her eyes. Schedules and acts were cut, making the shows go quicker as if time itself would pass by quicker if she did so. The exhausted performers could not wrap their heads around the rushed madness, each tick of Marlene’s pocket watch louder than the crack of her whip.

Antigone could not even begin to fathom how she could express to the ringmistress how she felt, especially not after the ordeal at the theater. Though so much time had passed since then and now, and the ringmistress had clearly stated she wanted to spend time with her. She banished the thoughts, focusing on preserving the flowers that have now dried. She gently placed the flowers into tall thin jars, slowing pouring in mineral oil. She plugged up the tops with cork and admired them. As she was placing some of the jars onto her shelf, Georgie descended the stairs to the mortuary. Antigone greeted her distractedly, rearranging some of the bottles, turning away the one she had taped the photo to. 

“I was actually about to ask you if you could preserve flowers.” Georgie said, delicately presenting Antigone a dry red rose. “It’s from my first date with Jennifer.” 

Antigone nodded, taking the flower from her and setting it down on her desk for a moment as she retrieved an empty jar. 

“Georgie, how did you figure out that you liked women?” She asked as she placed the rose inside the jar. 

She chewed on the question for a moment, “I dunno, I guess I knew it was always there, but for a while I only ever dated guys. There was this girl where I used to live and she was so cute, I remember going home to Nana and tellin’ her I liked this girl and she just told me that she would show whoever I brought home baby pictures of me.” Her cheeks grew a rosey pink at the memory. 

“So what, then? You always knew and you just accepted it?”

“I suppose, in a way.” The disappointed look in Antigone’s eye compelled her to say something more. “It’s alright if you haven’t always known, Antigone.”

Antigone sighed, pouring the mineral oil into the jar and plugging it up. She handed the newly preserved flower to Georgie, ignoring or deflecting all the probing questions she had about the initial question. She furrowed her brow, lingering on the stairs for a moment and turning over the jar in her hands. She said aloud that she would always be there for her if she needed her, but Antigone gave no response.  
Once hearing the door upstairs close, Antigone carefully untaped the photo from the jar and folded back the two performers so that it was just her and the ringmistress. She set the photo on the small table next to her couch. The house was still, emptier than a crypt. Antigone could not just sit there watching the shelves, no matter how prettily she’d decorated them.


	8. Chapter 8

Georgie had been giving advice to Antigone for weeks preparing her for this eventuality, encouraging her to explore whatever it was the ringmistress wanted to offer her. Whether Antigone had retained any of it would remain to be seen.  
Eventually finally came with Georgie having to pull Antigone out of the mortuary and practically shove her into the waiting ringmistress’s arms.

A pockmarked young waiter showed them to a table in the very middle of the restaurant; Antigone would have much preferred a table against the far wall, here she felt overcrowded, as if all eyes were on her. Marlene pulled out Antigone’s seat for her before taking her own, placing her top hat on the ear of the chair. Taking their drink orders, the young man rushed away with an unfathomable urgency. Marlene started with small talk, asking Antigone how her day was. But just as quickly as he had gone, the waiter interrupted them and handed Antigone her water and Marlene her wine. He then asked if they were ready to order, pen poised over his notepad. Marlene made a cursory scan of the menu and ordered the first thing her eyes stopped at, Antigone ordered the same. Hoping the breakneck waiter would leave them alone for a while, they handed back their menus. She asked the ringmistress how she had been holding up and she quietly answered the same way she had on the pier. 

“What do you do in your spare time?” Marlene added. 

“I-” should she tell her about her novels? Or her scented embalming fluid or experimentations on other ways of preservation? Could she tell her about her weekly excursions to the cinema? She did quiet things, alone things.  
Before she could answer, like a bright light in the otherwise ambiance lit restaurant, Eric Chapman sidled up to their table. 

“Hello, you two!”

“Hullo, Chapman…” Antigone mumbled, the ringmistress greeted him just as reluctantly. 

“Are you enjoying yourselves?” 

“Well, I would be if you left us alone.” Marlene said flatly. 

Eric’s bright demeanor faltered, he assured them that their food would be out soon. Unconvinced, Marlene foolishly asked how he could possibly have their food out in such a short amount of time and have it be well cooked. Much to Antigone’s dismay, he went off explaining all the gadgets and utter nonsense that was happening in his kitchens. Her mind began to drift, tuning out Chapman’s nonsense, she gazed at the ringmistress; the way her slender fingers absently toyed with the cloth table napkin, the arched curve of her nose and the mole at the upper corner of her mouth, the way her light hair had been matted a bit from her hat and the way it draped over her shoulder. Her mesmerizing eyes always half lidded in an almost sultry manner that always sent Antigone to shyly look away. She snapped back into reality when she heard the familiar inflection of “Enjoy yourself,” only half registering that he had finished his tangent with the point that his restaurant, and the entirety of Chapman’s in general, consistently had full stars on every review website known to man for the best and fastest services.  
The rushing waiter soon returned with their food and ran off at such an alarming speed, Marlene’s hair was tousled in the process. Eric finally left them to their meal, but neither of them touched their forks, instead Marlene absently swirled her wine while Antigone picked at the sleeve of her dress. 

“I’d been thinking about you a lot.” Antigone admitted, struggling to find more to say. Marlene placed her hand palm up on the table as an offering. As Antigone was inches away from taking the ringmistress’s hand, a terribly drunk Lady Templar interrupted her. 

“Antigone, I didn’t know you swung that way!” She laughed.

“What- I, um - it’s just business!” She stammered, quickly retracting her hand. 

“Business?” Marlene mumbled to herself.

Vivienne placed her hands on the table, leaning much to close to Antigone. What she hissed with such venom poisoned Antigone’s soul, the woman fell back in hysterical drunken laughter. The anguished look on Antigone’s face was enough for Marlene’s eyes to flicker with rage. In a flash she stood up, grabbing Vivienne by her fur coat. All around them people gasped, Eric swooped in as fast as he could to pry the two women apart. Marlene took hold of her necklace, the pearls clattering across the wooden floor.  
She clutched her whip, ready to use it against anyone who tried to approach her or her creepy girl. She shouted at Vivienne, all the while her hysterical cackling rang through her ears. Eric tried to calm them down, he commanded Vivienne to stop laughing while trying to keep Marlene from using her whip.  
Antigone sat there still, unable to move. The noise around her melted away into nothing, her vision blurred, for a moment there was nothing. A crack of a whip sent her back to reality, she pushed herself up from the table. Marlene grabbed her arm before she could leave. 

“Creepy girl, please-”

A twinge of anger crept to Antigone’s heart, her eye twitched. ”Stop calling me creepy girl, do you even know what my name is?” She spat, tearing herself away from the ringmistress.  
She rushed out of the restaurant, Marlene right after her, uncaring of the check or anyone at that damnable place. She caught her wrist.

“Antigone.” 

Her name wrapped around both their rib cages and held on tightly. She took both her wrists, pulling her closer to her, just as she was about to wrap her arms around her, Eric came running out of Chapman’s. He apologized profusely to them, trying to explain Lady Templar’s ugly drunken behavior. Antigone took a step back, the ringmistress let go of her and turned to Eric, clutching her whip. Her voice even, she told him she would have mowed them down herself if it meant she would get Antigone out of Vivienne’s roman holiday.  
The world was muted, Antigone only able to hear her hammering heart. She stood in the middle of the cobblestone square, blearily watching Marlene talk to Eric. Feeling as though her legs would give out, she stumbled to the front steps of her home. Bowing her head and clutching her hair, her breath grew more rapid. 

“What did Chapman do?” Rudyard asked when he opened the door, his eyes trained on him and the ringmistress.  
Antigone flatly told him that it had nothing to do with him. Rudyard lingered near her for a moment, but Marlene approaching with a rage in her eyes sent him to shut the door and hide inside his home.  
Marlene could not fathom what Lady Templar had said to cause Antigone to fall into such despair so quickly. Whatever may have been said, she swore to herself that she would make sure Antigone would never feel like that again. She was unsure of how to help her, standing in front of her she removed her jacket and draped it over her shoulders. She sat on the step next to her, toying with a cigarette before trying to light it. Her lighter failed to ignite, once the spark finally produced a flame, she took a drag from it and let the smoke curl out of her nose. Antigone picked her head up, looking to her. 

“Do you want me to leave you alone?” Marlene asked.

“No.” Antigone took a deep breath, sitting up properly. She pulled Marlene’s jacket over her shoulders more, taking comfort in her attempt to help. The two sat there in silence, Antigone trying to find the right words to string together in order to talk about what had just happened, she glanced at the ringmistress’s whip, and up to her, watching her turn her head so the smoke would drift in the other direction than where they sat. It irked Antigone that she could not convey how she felt, her emotions chained to her heavily. She mumbled an apology and then a thank you, unsure if the ringmistress had heard her.

“What kind of a name is yours?” She asked.

“It’s Greek, it means,” She faltered a moment, “it means to be worthy of one’s parents.” 

“It’s very pretty.” 

Antigone could not even begin to explain that it was not, that it was truly riddled with irony and anchored to a tragedy. “What about you, Marlene? I’ve heard your name pronounced in so many different ways.”

“It is spelled with an e at the end, but pronounced with an a, the way you say it.” She was used to a dozen variations, and sometimes she herself pronounced it differently. 

Antigone wanted Marlene to say her name again, she liked the way she pronounced it, her accent thick with it. An indifferent longing that she had been only vaguely conscious of attimes before became now a recognizable wish. It was so absurd, so embarassing a desire that Antigone banished it from her mind. She was vaguely aware that Marlene had asked her if she did truly want her to stop calling her "creepy girl." She shook her head, having grown somewhat fond of the nickname, she had never had one before.  
Marlene took a drag from her cigarette, the ashes falling onto the wood steps. She looked up at the stars, and blew out a ring of smoke.

"Impressive." Antigone said.

"I can do you one better."

The corner of her mouth lifted in a smile as Marlene blew out a smoke ring shaped like a heart. "Do you do that with all the girls?" 

"Only the ones I really like." 

A blush crept to Antigone's cheeks. She looked at Marlene, the smoke curling away from her nose. 

“How about next Sunday, my caravan, around say, 6pm?” 

Antigone glanced at her, “What?”

"I can cook dinner for you. That way we will not be bothered by anyone else, it could just be the two of us," She stubbed out her cigarette “that is, of course, if you want there to be a next time.” 

“That sounds lovely.” Antigone stood up, stumbling a bit from the steps. Marlene quickly moved to help her, asking if she was alright. She nodded and simply told her she looked forward to seeing her soon. Handing the ringmistress back her jacket, she thanked her. Marlene waited for a moment on the doorstep, pulling her jacket back on. She absently patted her head, realizing she left her hat at Chapman’s. Sighing, she traipsed back across the square. 

“What are you thinking, Antigone?” Rudyard asked as she entered their home. 

Antigone glanced at him and looked down. “I think I’m quite fond of her.”


	9. Chapter 9

Marlene pored over a notebook she kept of recipes she had remembered from home. Her mother had taught her how to cook when she was growing up, always telling her that the way to be a good wife was to be a good cook. Flipping through the tattered notebook, she stopped on a page where she had scratched a sketch of a small cauldron over open flame. _Gulášová polievka. _  
Closing the book, she set out for the Piffling marketplace where she picked up what she could: beef, potatoes, onions, garlic, and tomato paste. Whatever else she needed was likely in the small kitchen space that was fitted into another caravan, as it was used to cook the meals for the whole company. Upon entering, she found the bearded man in the middle of cooking for the rest, she easily scared him off, telling him to inform everyone that their dinner would be delayed and that their ringmistress would not be joining them. She took off her coat, rolled up her sleeves, tied her hair back and began to peel the potatoes.  
While she prepared the broth and beef, the performers and hired hands milled about outside. Their stomachs grumbled louder the more time passed, wondering why their ringmistress seemed to be isolating herself this evening. They elected Patrick to ask her, as he was after all her favorite strongman. After unsuccessfully trying to convince the others to just leave her be, he reluctantly entered the kitchen only for Marlene to thrust a spoonful of soup into his face. __

____

____

“Taste this.”

He took the spoon from her hand and ate the concoction, savoring the potatoes and beef.

“Do you think she’ll like it?” She asked eagerly.

“The woman from Funn Funerals?” 

“Of course, Patrick.” She said, rolling her eyes. “Who else could I possibly be talking about?”

Patrick lifted his eyebrows for a second, rolling his eyes. Marlene shot him an icy glare. Unfazed, he handed her back the spoon, advising her to add a bit more paprika. She turned back to the large pot of goulash, adding finishing touches. She commanded Patrick to take one of the smaller tables and two chairs and set them up outside her caravan. He left the kitchen caravan with no real answers for the performers, only telling them they she was just about done.  
Marlene carried the steaming pot to her caravan, where she found that Patrick had set up something more than she asked for. He had adorned the rickety wooden table with a red cloth that was fraying at the edges, on top of which sat two bowls, spoons and glasses already topped with water. In the middle of the table sat a small vase containing a single red rose. Fairy lights that she had forgotten lined the outside of her caravan glowed a warm orange, illuminating the table. Her creepy girl would be there any minute, and her shirt was stained with spatterings of broth. As there was no room on the table, she set the pot down on a chair and quickly vanished into her caravan to change into something clean. 

As Antigone approached Marlene’s caravan, her nose caught the scent of something wonderful. Her stomach growled loudly, she let out a small gasp once she saw the dinner set up, she waited by the table nervously. Marlene lumbered out of her caravan still buttoning her shirt, she left it unbuttoned perhaps a button too many. Antigone stopped kicking the gravel at her feet. They greeted each other somewhat awkwardly, Marlene politely pulling out Antigone’s chair for her and fixing their bowls. She shivered in the cool autumn air, and Marlene was quick to put her jacket on her shoulders. Antigone ate with more delight than the food may have warranted. 

“This is amazing, Marlene, what is it?” She asked between spoonfuls.

“It’s gulášová polievka. I used to eat it a lot at home.” She gestured vaguely behind her. 

“You’re a very good cook,” Antigone said, her hand hiding her mouth, “did you teach yourself?”

“In a way, yes.” She said. 

Marlene admired Antigone as they ate, though she worried about her, the way her dress hung loosely on her shoulders - she was certain it was the same one she was wearing every time she saw her. She offered her more of the goulash, which was eagerly accepted. She continued to admire her, her own bowl emptied a bit ago. When Antigone once again had finished eating she caught Marlene staring at her with such a loving look on her face, she took up her hand, pulling her knuckles to her lips.  
Antigone flushed - until she saw her nostrils quiver and knew, suddenly, what she smelled: the chemicals of embalming fluid, decaying flesh that had tainted her fingers so wholly throughout her life that she herself had ceased to notice it. She made at once to pull her hand away from the ringmistress. 

“You are so beautiful.” 

Antigone choked on the last bit she was chewing. Taking a hard swallow, Marlene had refilled her water glass and she downed the entire thing. She repeated over and over again to the increasingly concerned ringmistress that she was fine, once her heart settled and she stopped coughing, she let tears roll down her scarlet face.  
The two of them stayed quiet, Antigone rubbed the tears from her eyes, convincing herself that she was still crying because she had been choking. 

“What’s the matter?” Marlene offered, reaching over the table to thumb the fallen tear from her cheek .

“Nothing.” She jerked up from the table and started to set the bowls up and otherwise cleaning the table, Marlene took up everything, and beckoned her to follow her to the kitchen caravan.

The other performers were eating dinner still, and upon seeing their ringmistress with the woman from the funeral, their previous worry quickly diminished but their interests were piqued on who exactly this woman was to the ringmistress.  
All the while the performers talked among themselves, Marlene and Antigone cleaned up. She playfully flicked water at Antigone, who in turn did the same. Marlene swiped soap bubbles onto her dress. She groaned, complaining that her dress was already so dirty. The ringmistress smirked, drying her hands on a dishtowel.

“Well, then, how about you let me clean it sometime?” 

“How would yo-” A blush seared through her cheeks and for a minute she thought her face was on fire.

Marlene placed her hands on Antigone’s hips for only a second, before retracting them and remembering that she still had not given Antigone dessert.  
She slumped her shoulders and followed the ringmistress back to her caravan, wrapping her arms around herself, holding her own hips. She was all cold edges and bone, not someone Marlene would want to hold.  
The ringmistress paused in front of her caravan, pulling on the key around her neck. She vanished inside, leaving Antigone on the front steps. Rummaging through a wicker box scarce with Slovak junk food and sweets, the only thing she had left was Fidorka discs of varying flavors. She picked two original chocolate ones, making a mental note to herself to special order more sweets from The Broken Tooth.  
She almost kicked Antigone’s back as she emerged, finding her sitting on the steps. She sat tightly next to her and handed her a wrapped disc, explaining that it was a wafer covered in chocolate. She apologized for not making something from scratch, then going off on a tangent about the different flavors and other sweets she had eaten so frequently back in Slovakia. Antigone ate slowly; trying to relish what Marlene held dear as she listened to her briefly talk about her childhood, even if it merely about snacks. Marlene waited for Antigone to have completely finished eating before asking her a question.

“Why do you not have more clothing?” She asked bluntly. 

“Oh, I had to sell them so we could pay our bills.” She admitted, immediately regretting it once she saw the concerned look on Marlene’s face. She stammered, trying to convince the ringmistress that she was fine. She had another dress, one that Georgie had given her for Christmas, she wore it sometimes but even that one now had holes and stains like the one she wore. The ringmistress was unconvinced but let the subject go, not wanting to make her any more uncomfortable.  
It is not as though Antigone never cared for her appearance. She quite often took the time to paint her nails. Marlene noticed her nervously chipping the black polish away. Painted nails meant she took time out of her day to do so, it meant carefully spreading the polish over her nails, it meant patience in letting them dry. She called her beautiful again, placing her jacket over Antigone’s trembling shoulders and insisted she take the rest of the goulash home.

“Share it with your brother.”

“But the pot-”

“Just bring it back to me when you are done.”

She asked the ringmistress to walk her home. Marlene cradled the pot on her hip, leaving her other hand free. Antigone took the opportunity and grabbed Marlene’s hand. Marlene pulled her hand away for a moment, and just as Antigone was about to apologize she unfurled her fingers and let hers slip around hers until she could feel the heat of her palm pressed against her own. Marlene’s hands moved in the same inarticulate, blind way as if she would take up the handle of her whip, while Antigone’s were stiff but skilled in her way of embalming. Laced together, the two of them found that their hands fit so perfectly. Reluctant to let go once they reached Funn Funerals, Marlene handed her the pot, winking at her before turning back on her path. Antigone sighed. Setting the heavy pot onto the kitchen table, she dismissed a quick explanation to Rudyard.

“Tell Marlene she’s always welcomed here,” He said through a mouthful of goulash.


	10. Chapter 10

The food lasted them a few days. Reheating it on their stove, the Funns ate it for every meal. As the pot dwindled, they offered a bit to Georgie and made a luncheon out of it.  
With every last bit now scraped into their bowls, the three of them ate together; Rudyard enthusiastically telling the two that they secured another funeral. A librarian who was ancient even when the Funns were children had passed away peacefully in her sleep. The body was kept cold over at Chapman’s, but was to be transported over to them the next morning. Her will explicitly stated she wanted to be buried by Funn Funerals, her words claiming Antigone to be a lovely little bookworm. While they conversed, Georgie suggested Antigone bring over the ringmistress sometime. She was horrified at the thought, putting words in Rudyard’s mouth that he would not want her there if she was not booking a funeral. On the contrary, he sided with Georgie.

“Well, it would be a crime to not show the ringmistress what your profession is like,” Rudyard said, “and she should come to get to know the rest of us, since it seems you’re so fond of her.” He unsubtly suggested that perhaps Antigone’s reluctance to bring the ringmistress by was because she was ashamed of her profession and of him. Was their home not good enough for a woman who was so keen on pretending that she was royalty?  
Antigone gritted her teeth at the thought of Marlene interacting with her brother.

It continued to bother her when she visited her that evening. The dread looming over Antigone was palpable, weighing her down as she slumped her shoulders.

“What’s the matter?”

“My brother wants me to ask you to come over,” she said miserably, handing the ringmistress the newly cleaned pot. “For supper tomorrow. You don’t have to come, and I can say that you’re busy.”

“But my creepy girl,” Marlene said in wonder, “I would love to come.” She took Antigone’s hand once more. “Tell your brother I shall come tomorrow, at any time you like.”

“Come at four.” She pulled her hand away, thinking the time constraint for the show would mean the ringmistress spent less time in her home.

“Four it is, then!” The ringmistress smiled, the two of them leaving the tent for the evening’s show.

When she returned home, Antigone descended into her mortuary without a word. Pacing back and forth, she looked towards the metal embalming table and her machines, the piles of books she had collected over the years, the dusty shelves lined with glass bottles. Marlene’s jacket laid on her ancient couch, she pulled it on, somehow despite the frigid temperature of her mortuary it was warm. In the few times that Marlene had touched her, she always found that she was warm. Her own body was cold, she moved stiff as if taken over by rigor mortis, she was certain a corpse was not the sort of thing Marlene would ever want to have buried in her arms.  
She sat down and toyed absently with a trocar. Her talent for embalming came to her rather naturally, and she much preferred the company of her mother when she was being taught the art. Rudyard paid close attention to learning the mortuary trade, while Antigone watched boys and girls be paired off with each other at school, leaving her all alone. As she grew into a teenager, the teachers often said that she needed to focus, but the girls in class pulled her hair and with the boys she could not relate.  
A cold overcast day in February, a long time ago, a display in the library had caught her eye. The thick trade paperbacks displayed an array of shirtless men and scantily clad women, the descriptions on the back promising perfect romances. This is what she had been watching from a distance, imagining only vaguely in her mind. It intrigued her, and she ended up reading the whole display by the end of the month. Some of the copies she had claimed to the library she had lost, but in truth they were hidden under her pillows.  
Over the years, the ancient librarian never chastised her for the lost books, and often restocked the romance shelves quite easily. Although she had new material to build her maladaptive daydreams, she often found herself focusing closely on the women, how they felt, how they reacted. She had convinced herself it was because of the way the book was written.  
Once they had taken over the business, Rudyard once caught her pressing her lips against a corpse’s. Antigone had chased him through the house, threatening to embalm him alive if he ever told anyone what he saw. He never did. Even if he did, he would never have said that it was another woman. When Chapman arrived, it was like her books had come true. She convinced herself this was what she wanted, what she needed, what she deserved after years of being lonely and bitter. Years of spending most of her life in her own imagination where she had built a muddled world of romance where she was unsure if she wanted to be the women she read about in romance novels, or if she wanted them for herself.  
The ringmistress reminded her of those old feelings, the ones that crept out in the dark and wrapped themselves around her, spreading seeds of doubt throughout her body. Those feelings she wanted to keep hidden seeped through her skin, unable to turn and harm her if she was around her, she used Marlene’s jacket as an armour. Even so, her stomach churned. It came in waves, the fashion in which her heart pounded so loudly and her hands shook more than normally, covering her ears did nothing to silence her thoughts of the ringmistress as the feeling of spiders crawling over her skin overtook her.

Her train of thought was interrupted by Georgie’s sudden appearance. She leapt from the couch, aggressively pointing the trocar towards her asking her how long she had been standing there. Georgie lowered the needle that was inches from her face and ignored the question, asking her own.

“Is that Marlene’s jacket?”

"Georgie, I think I might be dying." She said, ignoring her question.

"What? You're not dying."

"No, that must be why I've been feeling so strange lately." Antigone said, pacing the mortuary. She placed her hands firmly on Georgie’s shoulders. "Promise me Georgie, you won't let Chapman have me. I could never give him the satisfaction."

"Antigone, you're not dying." She said with a laugh. "I think you just fancy the ringmistress."

“What?” She hissed, retracting her hands into claws. “No, I don’t. How dare you-”

“Yes, you do.” Georgie gestured to the flowers on the shelf. “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have kept the flowers, or her notes, or that photo from the newspaper,” she pointed to the photo laying on the side table. “And you certainly wouldn’t be asking me all these questions about fancying women, so will you please just drop the façade and just talk to me about what’s going on?”

"How dare you." Antigone took a step back from Georgie, clutching the trocar closer to her.

"You're wearing her jacket."

There was no way for Antigone to deny that, she stammered and apologized, throwing the jacket off.

"I'm sorry, Georgie." She mustered. “I know you-”

"You know I've been with Jennifer for months now, right? I'm over Marlene."

Antigone groaned, not wanting to bother Georgie any more than she often felt she did. When it was made clear to her that she would not budge, and that there was no way she could deny it any further like she had before, she finally said: “I never thought I would…”

“Have feelings for a woman?”

“Yes, that’s exactly it.” The graveyard of words that died when she tried to speak to Marlene rose from the dead for Georgie.

She listened intently, piecing together everything that was said. Chewing on Antigone’s anxieties, she then said: "Antigone, think of the place in your mind that stores your worries as like a...uhm,” She glanced at the now partly bent trocar in Antigone’s hands. “A corpse. Everything that makes you anxious is more embalming fluid in the corpse. If it’s too much then the body leaks or explodes or somethin’"  
Antigone made to protest but Georgie held up her hand and continued. "What you tend to do is bury your problems without doing anything to solve it.”

“But the corpse is going to have embalming fluid in it anyways.”

“I know, but natural burial isn’t the aim right now, the aim is to just keep you from exploding.”

Antigone thought about it for a moment, sitting down on her sofa and digging her hands in her hair. She expressed to Georgie that she was upset that she still did not quite understand who she was even at thirty six years old. Georgie sat next to her and placed a gentle hand on her back, assuring her that people never stop figuring themselves out.

"Promise me something, Antigone." She said, turning her head to face her. "Promise me you won't fill your head with the idea that it's wrong for you to be attracted to women."

The way Antigone looked at Georgie and the way she turned her head away, burning a hole into the floor, made it clear that it was too late to say that. It had been ingrained in her since she was younger, she had beaten her feelings down and hid them underneath a pile of raunchy books and french cinema. She looked back at Georgie, wishing she could have the confidence she and Marlene had, envious of the peace of mind they had with themselves.

"I wish I had known you when I was growing up."

“You’re going to be alright, Antigone.” Georgie said, not wanting to ruin their moment by pointing out their age difference. She leaned her head on her shoulder, and closed her eyes.


	11. Chapter 11

“This is the wrong book." Antigone said, flipping through the cookbook Georgie handed her.  
After the librarian's funeral she had returned the ringmistress's jacket by leaving it neatly folded in front of her caravan, knocking, then running away. She had sent Georgie to the library to retrieve a Slovakian cookbook, but upon being unable to find one she returned with the closest thing she could find - a Russian one.

“Antigone, I doubt she cares about the actual meal,” Georgie assured. “She’s just going to appreciate that you cooked for her.” 

“I suppose you’re right.” Holding up the book, she showed her a page for a piroshki recipe. “This ought to be good.” 

Later on, when Georgie returned from the market with the ingredients, Rudyard and Antigone were milling about the kitchen, scouring the fridge for minor ingredients and rummaging the cupboards for plates and whatever else they needed to make the meal.  
Rudyard was excited to cook for someone else other than his sister for the first time in years, while Antigone was still anxious that it would not be good enough for the ringmistress. He got to work slicing and cutting the potatoes into cubes, and then mashing them, he added the onions but struggled to ignite the stove, he kicked it, a blue flame shot up from the stove top before settling down to an orange hue. He lowered the temperature and mixed the vegetables in the pan.  
Georgie and Antigone worked on the dough, or more so Georgie did as Antigone complained about the texture, pulling her fingers away from the sticky mass. Feeling useless as Rudyard focused on the filling and Georgie the dough, she stood back with her arms crossed. Madeleine's nose twitched from the kitchen counter, she herself much too focused on the cooking. After all was ready, Georgie brought her over to help fill the dough, showing her how to properly press the dough pocket closed.  
Their ancient stove was a questionable piece of machinery, the Funns never quite knew how long it took to cook anything. The recipe might say twenty minutes, but it either truly took five or forty minutes depending on how the oven decided to feel that day. Without thinking, Georgie set the pan of piroshki into the rack and closed the door. They set up the table, still having some time before the ringmistress would arrive. 

Black smoke began to billow out from the sides of the oven. The three shouted in a panic, Rudyard running to throw open the windows while Antigone frantically threw open the oven door, repeating “no” in a maddening manner; she reached for the pan with her bare hands, immediately flicking back her pained hands . Georgie took a mitt and removed the burning piroshki, shutting off the oven. Without much thought, she tossed the burnt food out the door.  
Antigone hunched over, pressing a hand to her mouth. She had hardly done anything to help and now their dinner was ruined and the ringmistress would be there at any moment. Georgie pulled her outside, sitting her down on the front steps. Hands buried deep in her hair, Antigone pulled, still repeating “no.” Georgie stood by her, watching Rudyard cough and carelessly kick the blackened dough.  
To make matters worse, a concerned Eric Chapman was now coming across the square. 

“Blimey, what happened?" He eyed the black rocks that Rudyard was now carefully picking up and tossing in a rubbish bin. "What were you trying to cook?”

“It was meant to be piroshki.” Antigone said quietly, she crossed her arms over herself as she stood up.

“I can have my chef make you some piroshki if you’d like, free of charge.” He offered.

“No! I wanted to be the one to cook for her.” She whined. “I haven’t been able to do anything today.”

“You helped put the filling in the dough.” Rudyard said. 

“That was hardly anything.”

“Now look here, you don’t like onions or cooking at all really, and you complained about the dough being sticky so Georgie did it.” He said, gesturing to her. “Besides, it’s the oven’s fault, I don’t get why you are so upset.”

“Shut up, I just wanted everything to be perfect." She said, her voice wavering. “Of course you wouldn’t get why.” 

"For who?" Eric asked.

"No one! It doesn't matter.” She muttered. "Everything’s ruined.”

Rudyard sighed and tossed the last of the burnt piroshki into the bin.

Further down the street, the ringmistress sauntered up the cobblestone, her nose catching the rancid scent of burning food. The sight of the remnants of smoke clearing from Funn Funerals sent a twinge into her heart, she walked faster. She pursed her lips, taking a deep breath as her eyes locked on a seemingly perpetually agonized Antigone. 

“I’m sorry, Marlene, I really am sorry.” Antigone said in place of a greeting.

"My offer of free dinner is still on the table." He said smiling at his unintentional pun.

Marlene took a good long look at the state of everyone. Georgie standing there with an oven mitt, Rudyard and the trash bin, and Antigone who looked utterly miserable. "I think I will accept that offer." She said, ignoring Antigone's pleas not to.

“I’ll just see myself out.” Eric said, walking back across the square. 

“I’m sorry, I really-” 

“Are you alright?” She asked with such earnesty that even Georgie and Rudyard were taken aback by it. 

“I-I’m fine.”

She sat Antigone back on the steps. The smoke was still clearing from their house as Rudyard joined them, leaning on the doorway. The twins quietly grumbled about Eric, Antigone reeling still about her ruined dinner. 

“Cheers, guys.” Georgie said, placing her helmet on her head.

“You’re not leaving.” 

She glanced at Antigone, then to the ringmistress, then back to her. “What?”

“You can’t leave just yet, you have to stay for dinner.” She said with a hint of pleading.

“You’re family, too.” Rudyard added. 

Georgie set her mo-ped helmet down and pressed against the wall, eyeing the way the ringmistress fussed over Antigone’s hands and the way she in turn tried to pull her dress sleeves over them. Marlene then asked Rudyard about the man from across the square, having only a basic understanding of why he disliked him so.  
Rudyard summarized their history, admitting that his kindness towards them, and especially towards Georgie when her nana passed away had softened his otherwise colder heart. Though he still annoyed them greatly on occasion, he was now simply an ever present being and they just have come to accept it. Antigone had not interjected during any of this as she was either chewing her nails or clawing her dress. Marlene gently placed her hand on her back, rubbing small circles. 

“Stop touching my sister.”

Marlene turned to look at him. “I beg your pardon?”

“She’s clearly still upset.” 

Antigone twisted herself around to shoot him an appalled look, whatever protective stance he was trying to take manifested in the wrong way as his sister tried to scoot away from the ringmistress. Georgie elbowed him a little more harshly than was deserving.  
Eric returned from Chapman’s, balancing two trays of plates, glasses of water, and cutlery. He carefully handed them their plates, a prettier display than what could have been as the golden brown piroshki was paired with a range of roasted vegetables. Eric lingered for a moment, hoping they would offer him to join. He tried to make small talk with Marlene, but it was clear that the four just wanted him to go away. At this point Eric was quite used to this, and he said his common phrase of “enjoy yourselves!” and walked back across the square.  
Their conversation traveled across topics, mostly about the funerals the Funns had been involved in, and the lengths they had gone to one-up Chapman. Marlene already knew the lengths they would go, Antigone working herself to exhaustion and sacrificing their sanity for the sake of putting the body in the coffin in the ground on time. She had not realized at the time how much Antigone had cared about the clowns of her circus, she cared more about them than she herself had cared. She saw now how dedicated she was to her work, and started to admire the complexity of it all.  
Rudyard’s way of dismissing all the nonsensical funerals he had directed and putting the blame on everyone else amused her as well. As he went off on a tangent about Madeleine, the little mouse scurried up next to her. Marlene took her up, wondering if she could ever train a mouse for her circus, or if it would even be a draw. He found her gaze on Madeleine too curious and gently took her from her hands, making it clear that she was a funeral house mouse only.  
She pressed her lips together and glanced at her fob watch, realizing that she was actually quite late to introduce the opening act. As much as she did want to hear more about this supposed seagull funeral and what treasure had laid within the chest, she had a circus to run. Setting aside the plate, she made her exit, but not before telling Antigone that the food was excellent as if she had been the one to cook it.

“It was nice spending time with you and you, uhm-” She looked at Antigone.

“Rudyard.”

“Rudyard.” Curling her fingers, she forced herself to push away what he had said earlier and added: “You are very amusing.” 

He smiled delightfully, keeping the ringmistress’s words close to his chest. They watched her rush up the cobblestone street, checking the second hand tick on her fob watch as she went. The smoke had finally cleared from their home, but the stale scent lingered for a while. 

“Can I go now?” Georgie asked, her part in the conversation was useless save for periodically interjecting in correcting Rudyard’s attempts to put himself in the right light, with each correction had elicited an amused noise from the ringmistress. “I am really late, I meant to see Jen tonight, she’s probably wondering where the hell I am.”

Antigone snapped out of her focused stare as Marlene disappeared down the street. “Huh? Oh, yes. You can go.” 

She bade them a good evening and zipped down the streets of Piffling with a sputter of her mo-ped. 

“I quite like her now. She listens.” He said as they entered their home. He decided he would keep the fine china that Chapman had left with them, and would pretend they did not have them ifever he came in asking for them. 

“What the hell was that, Rudyard?” 

“Watch your language,” He covered Madeleine’s tiny ears with the tips of his fingers. “What was what? I thought the evening went fine after Chapman left.”

“‘Stop touching my sister’? Why the bloody hell did you say that?”

“I just meant to protec-”

“Protect me? From what? From actually being cared for for the first time in my life?”

“No, I just meant-”

“I don’t care what you meant.” She growled. “You were the one who thought to invite the ringmistress in the first place and that’s how you treat her?”

“Now look here-”

"No, you look here, I cannot believe you really told her to not touch me. I..." She trailed off, unable to admit that she loved her. "For Christ's sake, she was just trying to help, why don't you ever let me-"

"Antigone-"

“Don’t ruin this for me, Rudyard. Please.” 

With that, she disappeared into the house, leaving Rudyard alone outside. He sighed, glancing across the square for a moment he could have sworn he saw Chapman staring from an upper window.  
Eventually he closed the windows, drew the curtains shut and for once he locked the door.


	12. Chapter 12

The ever darkening sky above was nothing but a plain sheet of grey, not even a single droplet had yet to fall by the time Antigone reached the village cemetery, a small bouquet of flowers in hand. It had taken her twenty minutes to convince Petunia that she was, in fact, not dead and an additional ten minutes to apologize on part of her brother for “traumatizing” her.  
Her intention was to lay the bouquet on her parents’ grave, something she had forced Rudyard to do on her behalf during the years she never left the house, save for Thursdays. The burial grounds held one other living person, the ringmistress standing in front of a tombstone at the far end of the lot, holding a small leatherbound book.

“What are you doing here?” She asked, approaching her. “I thought staring at graves was sort, well, my thing.”

“Why did we not decide to cremate him? He was already burnt beyond recognition, it would have been much easier to just finish the job.”

Glancing at the shiny marble grave of the firebreather, her jaw clenched. “You sound like Rudyard.”

Marlene made a noncommittal sound.

“I’m really sorry about what he-”

“You should not be apologizing for him.”

Antigone quieted, fidgeting with the thin black ribbon tied around the stems.

“Who are those for?” She nodded to the flowers.

“You…?”

“I am not stupid, creepy girl.”

Hunching her shoulders, she walked over to a large mossy grave in the middle of the plot of land, silently gesturing for Marlene to follow. Two names were etched into the stone with the surname Funn, underneath the dates told they died only a few days apart. She bent down to set down the bouquet on the grass. When she stood up, still staring down at the grave, she let Marlene take her hand. She wondered what they would think of all of this, it was certain they would not have approved, the severity of their disapproval she was grateful not to know. Though she did not believe in ghosts, her father’s voice echoed through her head. _Revolting._ A childhood memory of walking through the Piffling marketplace with him. _They should be ashamed of themselves._ Two women holding hands. _Funn Funerals will never take the likes of them._ Antigone did embalm one of them, years later.  
She pulled her hand away.

“I was the one who embalmed them.”

Marlene turned her head, eyes softening as she took in Antigone’s solemn expression.

“You are very good at your job.”

“Thank you.”

The gentle wind blew past them as they stood in silence, warmly coloured autumn leaves skittered over the hard ground. Marlene checked her fob watch, clicking it shut.

“I must attend the evening’s training, you are more than welcome to join me.”

“Really?”

“Of course.” She offered her hand, which Antigone did not take, rather she began to march in the direction of where the circus had last set up.  
“Other side of the island.” The ringmistress added, turning her around.

The two of them sat in the front row, watching the jugglers work on their act on unicycles. Tightrope walkers and acrobats stood tall on their platforms, preparing for their turns. Nearby, the now duo of fire breathers lingered. Antigone watched intently as the primary coloured clubs flipped through the air. Marlene sat with one arm slung lazily over her lap, the other clutching her whip. One of the jugglers grew a bit nervous. Losing his focus, he missed the club and was knocked off his unicycle. Marlene groaned, getting up and snapping her whip down. She shouted at them that they had done this a thousand times before, they should not be screwing things up still.  
Antigone looked at her dismayed, taking the defense of the jugglers. The others pleaded with her to drop it, as they were quite used to being shouted at for even the smallest mistake. The ringmistress gripped her whip closely by her side.

 _Stop it._ Her curled fingers implored. _They don’t need to be reprimanded so harshly_. She wanted to say, unable to utter the words quickly enough.

Marlene shook her head, picking up her book as she walked out of the tent, snapping her whip once more. She waved her hand for Antigone to follow, but she remained there, fists held at her chest.

“Very well, you can remain here if you enjoy such bad performances.”

Looking about the confused performers, she went after her in huff. She grabbed her coat, spinning her around to face her.

“There was no justification for that.”

“I have rules.” The ringmistress scoffed. “There are rules of nature, rules of man, even circuses have rules.”

“Still-”

“Do you not snap at your brother or assistant when things do not go the way they should? Hm?”

“That is not the same.”

“Is it not?”

“You couldn’t do what we do.”

“You’re right! I could not embalm a body or run a funeral. That is your area of expertise. And this-” She shoved the book into Antigone’s hands. “-is mine.”

There was a chaos that reigned at the heart of the circus, with Marlene’s rule it was a well-oiled machine. As ringmistress, it was her duty to keep the circus’s operations neat and fine tuned, keep every cog well-aligned as her acts were clearly stated, even illustrated and enumerated on that staunchly dense if ever complicated little guide. There were consequences if the performers did not follow the plans set out for each show. Antigone turned the pages, poring over each act. She shut the book, handing it back to her.

Grabbing her whip, she turned it around and jabbed her chest with the handle rather than snapping it. “They’re still people, Marlene, not mechanical toys you can wind up the gears for. I have been embalming my entire life and even I make mistakes if I lose focus.”

Marlene kicked the gravel. With her jaw clenched, she muttered, “I am sorry.”

“I am not the one you should be apologizing to.” She pointed to the tent.

The ringmistress scowled. Antigone grabbed her hand and took her back to the tent. Her apology was half-hearted, it was accepted mostly to the performers not wanting to deal with it anymore. How strange this woman was who clung by their ringmistress’s side, they thought. The strong man crossed his arms over his chest, noticing the way Marlene’s otherwise rigid stance would relax around that mortician, fingers drumming her side either wanting to hold her hand or take her whip back.  
Dismissing everyone for the night, she turned away once again. Antigone, with whip still in hand, found Marlene outside the tent, an unlit cigarette dangling from her lips. With a swipe of a match, she held the flame up. There was something rotten in her eyes as she took each drag, as if she perversely lured on that morbid end to punish those who caused her rage. The smoke waltzed away with a rancid stench.  
She tried to make a grab for her whip but Antigone jerked her arm away, unintentionally snapping it in the process. Flinching as it did, Marlene took a step back. Clutching the whip tighter, Antigone felt her eyes lingering on her as she looked away. As the ringmistress crushed the remnants of her cigarette under her boot, she told her she had someone she wanted her to meet. Walking ahead, she gestured for her to follow.

How beautiful the empty circus grounds were. Their path illuminated only by strings of lightbulbs held up by tall wooden posts. Reaching a larger solid red tent, they slipped into the hay padded canvas. A mighty grey elephant greeted Marlene with wild, boisterous joy.  
Her trunk entwined around her, hugging her back eagerly. Antigone watched her pet the gentle beast, its trunk unraveling from the ringmistress. Wrapping her arm around Antigone’s shoulder, she presented her to the elephant.

“This is Slona.”

“Hello, Slona…” Antigone said hesitantly.

The mighty old girl trumpeted happily. Antigone hid behind Marlene, clutching her shoulder. The ringmistress assured her she was kind, bringing her a bit closer. She lifted her hand and brought it down a bit, signaling to Slona to be quiet. With her encouragement and shaky hand, Antigone pet the elephant’s trunk.

“When I first came here, I used to sleep alongside her on my worst nights.”

Antigone twisted her fingers, frankly jealous that she had fulfilled their shared desire to run away and join the circus. "I have been meaning to ask why you came here."

"It is not a very entertaining story." Marlene patted the elephant, leaving it at that.

Antigone clutched her sleeve, trying to pull her away from the tent and groaning. She pressed her head to Slona’s, murmuring to her a good night. The elephant’s big eyes followed them as they left, sparkling in the light.

For the life of her she could not execute the flirting techniques Georgie had taught her so long ago as each time she looked at Marlene her ability to breathe vanished. Finally she mustered:

“Shall we...shall we take this back t-to my place?”

Marlene smiled slyly, taking her hand as the two of them walked to Funn Funerals, Antigone briefly letting go with every streetlamp they walked under. The house was already dark, Rudyard likely having retired to his room for the night. Save for the creaking stairs, they moved very nearly soundlessly down to the mortuary, leading her by the hand. Marlene only heard her warning to watch her step right when her boot landed in god only knew what.

“You’ve really been doing this your whole life?” Marlene asked as she scanned the shelves. She picked up an ancient bottle labeled “formaldehyde,” Antigone hissed at her to not touch anything, immediately she put it back.

“I can preserve just about anything now.”

“I can tell.” Marlene smiled, glancing at the jarred flowers.

Standing by her, Antigone picked at her nails and rambled about the family business. She asked the ringmistress if she had ever thought about her own death. She scoffed, spouting some grandiose description of her funeral. There would be music sounding through the village, the funeral procession would resemble a parade, her coffin would be adorned in gold, the interior lined with the softest material to the human race, and all the while she would be carried by her favorite strongman. Antigone looked at her with an anxious expression as if trying to prepare herself to undertake that endeavor. Getting the body in the coffin in the ground on time would not do, for Antigone it never did.  
Truthfully, Marlene did not want the Funns to conduct her funeral, but not because she did not trust them. If she were to ever tell Antigone the truth, she feared that when they struck up the band, the fanfare would not be a celebration of her life but of her death, the end of a tyrannical era. Pausing for a moment, she scoffed once more, not needing to worry about such trifles.  
While Antigone fussed over the jars of miscellanea, Marlene moved from the shelves to her stacks of books, picking up one of the novels. The cover depicted a woman with dark curling hair, her peplos torn heavily in particular places, laying upon what looked like a kline bed. The contemptuous sound from the ringmistress caused Antigone to turn sharply to her. Showing the cover to her, she noted that the woman looked like her. Making to tear the book away from her hands, Marlene held it away with a teasing smile in response. With each step back, she took a step forward, trying to get the book away. The ringmistress backed into the couch, falling onto it with her. The book fell to the floor, Antigone grabbed the sides of the cushions. Only centimeters away from each other, so close to touching but not quite, Antigone scrambled away. She hunched herself onto the farthest side away from her as Marlene sat up properly, moving a bit closer. She leaned down to pick up the discarded novel.

“So, you like these sorts of books?” She flitted through the pages.

“Yes. Well, no. No.” Antigone took the book from her hands, tossing it aside. “It’s just that one.”

Unconvinced, the ringmistress took her hand and idly kissed it, “You are a goddess.”

Antigone’s face twisted in a grimace. She remembered when Marlene had called her a titan, both sentiments still wrong. “Antigone was not a goddess. She was the daughter of an incestuous relationship. She committed suicide.”  
Even though she despised her name and everything tied to it, she liked the way Marlene pronounced it on the rare occasion that she did. The ringmistress was unwavered by her blunt statement.

“Oh, come now. That is not the only thing she is known for. She was strong-willed, was she not?”

“You used to think I was a mad woman.”

“Used to,” she emphasized. “Things have changed, my creepy girl.” Her fingers brushed her cheek, thumb caressing her skin. Antigone felt as though she would black out. Closing her eyes, she wrapped her fingers around Marlene’s wrist, pushing her hand away.

Marlene continued. “I can see now how incredible you are, how hard you work. You work so hard for such a thankless job.”

"Just don't put me on a pedestal."

"Then what is it you want from me?"

Staying quiet for a moment, her eyes burned a hole into the floor. “Would you ever be angry with me if I made a mistake like you are with your performers?”

“I will never harm you, I promise you that.”

Antigone did not blame the ringmistress as some others had for the death of the fire breather, but she understood why they did. All the performers had was a desperate desire to please their ringmistress lest they suffer her wrath. “What do you want from me?”

“For one,” Marlene leaned back, pulling a small bag of pretzel sticks from her jacket pocket. “I want you to eat well.”

Antigone caught the brown striped bag, toying with the serrated edge. “Is that all?”

“No.”

“What do you want, then?”

“I want to cherish you.”

Through half-lidded eyes she moved closer until Antigone pressed her hand against the ringmistress’s mouth.

"You can't…" Her eyes filled with dismay. As she was about to ask why, Antigone lurched away from her. “You should just leave, Marlene. I shouldn’t have brought you down here...There’s no beauty here, only death and decay.”

“There’s you.”

Antigone shot her a glare, she hunched into herself as her face reddened. She said nothing, only her fingers shooing her away in such a manner that seemed as though she were forcing herself to make her muscles move, her heart hammering away the silence that begged her to stay.  
What little light was in the mortuary reflected off of the buttons of Marlene’s jacket as he replaced her top hat on her head.

"I shall take my leave. You are always welcome at my circus,” leaning in a bit closer, she murmured. “And in my caravan.”

The kiss she left on her cheek occurred so fast and so naturally that Antigone was not entirely certain it happened at all.  
She dragged her nails down her cheek as if to claw away all the affection she gave to her.


	13. Chapter 13

Antigone lurked around the romance section of the Piffling Library, fingers brushing over the spines, eyes searching for something new. She bit her lip, hesitating to pull out one particular novel that caught her attention. Right as she pulled the book from the dusty shelves, a loud shush foiled her careful methods. She grasped the novel and walked out from the stacks to see who had the audacity to ruin her silence.  
The ringmistress had sauntered into the library, her presence alone having caused the younger librarian to shush her. Shooting the woman an incredulous glare, she turned sharply, making her way to the large oak shelves that held the romance section. Unknown to her was that Antigone was pressed against the other side of the bookshelf, hand clasped over her mouth, the other clutching the same sort of novel. She squeezed her eyes shut, pleading for Marlene to leave soon enough.  
Each cover the ringmistress looked at promised a story more tantalizing than the last, but she found they were all the same. She checked a few out from the library, ignoring the librarian's comment of her choices. Hidden in the shadows that seemed attached to her, Antigone followed her, wincing at every displeased groan she emitted as she skimmed the pages. Though Marlene honestly found them to be nothing but poorly written rubbish, she knew she would read them over and over again until she could read them through Antigone's eyes, trying to understand what she could possibly want from her since that seemed to be her only frame of reference on romance.  
Losing her when she walked into The Broken Tooth, Antigone clutched her own book and rushed back to Funn Funerals.

The moment she stepped into the sweet shop, her senses were assaulted by the sickenly sweet smell of sugar, the walls a riot of vibrant shades.  
Agatha greeted her kindly.

“Ah, Miss Magdalena, here to order more of those Slovakian snacks of yours? I must admit that I might have sampled a few of your last order.”

“Yes,” she began, lifting an eyebrow at the admission of her stolen goods. “I also am requesting an assortment…” She trailed off, scanning compartments of sweets. There were sugar covered fruit jellies, liquorice all=sorts, sherbet dib dabs, fizzy cola bottles galore. Unsure of what kind of sweets her creepy girl liked, or if she even liked them at all, she caught a dusty black box hiding behind an assorted box of turkish delight. She nodded to the box. “What is that?”

“Oh, you don’t want that,” she insisted. “It’s quite old.”

“May I see it?” Marlene insisted.

Agatha hesitantly took the box down from the shelf. Memento Mori was painted on the box with silver gothic lettering. She brushed her fingers over the lettering, something written under the name was painted over in black nail polish. She handed it back to Agatha. “I shall take it.”

“Wouldn’t you rather have these?” Presenting a gold box labeled Blond Supremes.

“Those seem horrendous,” She sneered at the blindingly bright box, “I will take these.” She pushed the box further onto the counter to Agatha.

The confectioner constable did not charge the ringmistress for the old box of chocolates, merely charging for her order of Slovakian snacks. Before she left the shop she warned her that the chocolates would put her in a coma, Marlene laughed a short boisterous laugh, telling Agatha she was quite funny. The confectioner shrugged her shoulders, mumbling to herself that she had warned her and popped a Blond Supreme into her mouth.

Funn Funerals was filled with a brittle silence as the air outside grew colder. Days passed, Antigone’s nose stuck in her own books, wondering what the ringmistress could be doing with those same ones.  
The creaking from above irked her. Setting down her book, she crept up the stairs, finding her brother making himself a cup of hot water.

“Where’s Georgie?” She asked, startling him.

“She’s booked with the mayor today.”

“Oh.” She glared at him, an anger on the way he acted about Marlene still simmered within her. Testing him, she admitted: “I invited the ringmistress here a few nights ago.”

“Since when do you openly allow people in your mortuary? You blindfolded Lady Templar when you brought her down here - mind you, you also traumatized her-”

“I did not! More than anything _you_ did. I brought the ringmistress down here because-”

“I don’t want to know why you brought her down there.”

Antigone threw up her hands, face growing red. “For the love of god, it wasn’t for-I’m not-”

“Oh, sure, it wasn’t-”

“Rudyard.” She muttered. “Why are you going back on your word?”

He set down his cracked mug. “What are you talking about?”

“You said Marlene was always welcomed here, yet you treated her so poorly when she was here.” Leveling her intense stare, he tried to back away, only pressing himself further into the counter. “Why?”

“Well, I just don’t see why she needs to be here if she’s not booking a funeral.” He took a sip from his mug. “Doesn’t she have a circus to run?”

“She’s spending time with me.”

“I can’t imagine why she would want to waste her time like that.”

“For Christ’s sake, is it really hard to believe someone would want to spend time with me?”

“All I’m saying is why would _she -"_ He emphasized, gesturing garishly, mimicking the boisterious way she presented shows. "- want to spend time in your dark, dirty mortuary?”

Antigone took a step back, studying him. “You’re right, Rudyard.”

He spat out his water. “I beg your pardon, did you say I was right?”

“You’re right, Rudyard. She doesn’t have to spend time with me here.” She said carefully, calculating her next words. “I can spend time with her.”

It took him a moment to catch on. “Now look here, I forbid you from-”

“Forbid me?” She scoffed. “I am a grown woman, Rudyard.”

“Antigone-”

She was out the door before he could say anything further. He stared at the wide open door of his business, most importantly his home, pleading out loud to no one for his sister not to leave.


	14. Chapter 14

The wind pushed her to Marlene’s caravan. Bitter and freezing, each step became a prayer for the caravan as she walked, seeing the light from the small window in her flickering daydreams, letting it become more real than the freezing afternoon.

Upon hearing a knock on the door, the ringmistress stashed away her book, opening her door to see a trembling Antigone.

“You s-said I would always be welcome in your caravan.” She said through chattering teeth.

Marlene stepped aside, allowing her to enter. Warmth emitting from a small wood stove washed over her as she did, she sat her down at an antique red vanity. she saw now how cluttered it was - with empty glasses and short stacks of notebooks, with playing cards and half-smoked cigarettes. She turned herself aside in the chair, avoiding looking at herself in the mirror, and examined every detail around it. Her eyes caught the photo from the newspaper, she was about to smile but found herself pulling her knees up in surprise as Marlene knelt beside her, jostling open the bottom drawer of the vanity.  
She picked up a framed photograph of the ringmistress and the clowns. It must have been when Marlene first arrived, a bright grin forever captured in this photograph. She had seen her smile, but never one like that.

“You know, I had always wanted to be a clown,” She set down the frame.

Marlene looked up at her in disbelief. "You wanted to be a clown?"

"Yes, I still have the make up..."

“Oh, do you now?” She said with a smirk, she took up the box of Memento Mori. Antigone thought she saw something familiar in the drawer, but it was shut before she could see it properly. “Who was your favorite?”

“Bijou...I adored her ever since I was a child.”

Marlene handed her the box of chocolates as she glanced at the photo frame, eyes locking on the eldest clown in all white, her pierrot makeup accented with silver.

“Christ, where did you get these?” She hissed.

“The Broken Tooth, where else?”

“Those are going to put you in a coma.”

“Ah, so you’ve heard Agatha’s joke as well.”

“No, Marlene, I made those. They will literally put you in a coma.”

Marlene was too delighted by the confession that her creepy girl had made the confection to adhere to her warning. She opened the box and bit into one of the deeply dark bitter sweets. Chewing slowly, she wondered what the big deal was. Antigone implored for her to lie down, the ringmistress did so, laying on her bed that was built into the back of her caravan. The coughing that often followed when someone ate Memento Mori reached Marlene and after her short fit she fell dead asleep against the myriad of pillows that she had.  
Antigone kept watch over her, watching her chest rise and fall, making sure she was still breathing. Her curiosity did not subside, her hand drawn towards the bottom drawer. It was stuck, she jostled it open and found a few books and a stack of papers stapled together. Recognizing them both, she shut the drawer and clasped her hand over her mouth. After a moment, she pulled the drawer open again and took the books and script out. A couple of romance novels she had already read, the final book underneath was none other than Scandalliances.  
The script, of course, was the one for The Sun Beyond The Shade. She began to scrutinize everything Marlene had highlighted in the books, marked out or written notes for, hastily scratched stars were interspersed among the pages, marking what seemed the most important. Unfortunately for her prying eyes, the notes were written in Slovak, the same went for everything she had noted in the script. She thought to ask Marlene to teach her some Slovak as she read over every underlined passage.  
Marlene began to groan as she woke up, Antigone quickly put everything back in the drawer, kicking it closed. She pretended to be deeply intrigued by a postcard depicting a map of central eastern europe, one particular country still labeled “Czechoslovakia.”  
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, asking how much time had passed. Though it had only been thirty minutes, she admitted she had never felt that well rested.

“Now. I recall you saying you wanted to be a clown,” She got up from her bed, and brushed her fingers under Antigone’s chin. “How about you let me paint your face?”

Antigone worried about how Marlene had felt post-chocolate coma, but the ringmistress assured her she felt just fine and repeated her proposal.

“No, absolutely not.”

“Why not?”

“Just. Not now.”

Marlene sat at the edge of her bed again, unable to read the expression on her face, a sense of guilt always seemed etched into her features. In the way she did not look her in eye, she hardly ever did, there was something else behind her nervous glances.

“When did Czechoslovakia break apart?” Antigone asked, pointing to the postcard.

“In 1993.”

“May I ask how old you were?”

“I must have been around three or four years old.”

Antigone took a moment to calculate the math, “You’re five years younger than me.” She said with a rather astonished tone.

Marlene let out a short breath, not wanting to dwell on that any further. Gesturing vaguely behind her, she went on, rattling off the vocabulary difference between the Czech and Slovak languages that emerged after the split.

“Would you ever teach me Slovak?”

“I can.” She stood up, coming behind Antigone and looking at her through the mirror’s reflection. Playing with her hair, she brought it all behind her back. Leaning down, murmuring into Antigone’s ear.

“What does that mean?”

“Do not be so prying, creepy girl.”

Antigone broke her gaze, the ringmistress took her hand and calmly but firmly asked her to not go through her things like that again. She protested, pointing out that she had taken and teased her about the novels in her mortuary. It felt as though it were not the same, as her things had been hidden away in a half-broken drawer, written in her first language that no one else would understand save for her, not meant for inquiring eyes. Taking a deep breath, she took control of her unwarranted sense of betrayal. She did not blame Antigone for being so curious considering she had told her so little up until recently.

“I’m sorry…”

“Do not do that again.” She said sharply. “Or at least ask.”

“Alright, then, what were you-”

Marlene got up, pulling on her tailcoat. “The show is going to start soon, are you coming?”

Her eyebrow twitched. Despite her curiosity, she followed the ringmistress to the tent.

Upon seeing Antigone in the front row, the circus company performed their hearts out to impress her. The stiltwalkers danced a jilted jig, leaning down to hand her a rose, a gift from her ringmistress. Antigone held it close, flattered by the attentions of people so beautiful and bright.

After the show ended, Marlene carried two plates of their dinner back to her caravan where she found Antigone standing on the steps, waiting. They ate in almost silence, unable to look each other in the eye. The only sounds came from Antigone, her fork clattering to the wood floor, her quiet yet frantic apologies, her setting their empty plates outside for the strongman to come to pick up later to clean.  
She could not read Marlene’s expression, unsure of what was running through her head.

The ringmistress knelt in front of her antique trunk. She pulled out a long black dress and knit jumper she had been waiting to give to Antigone for her birthday, once she would know when that was, but figured it would be better to simply give the clothing to her now.  
Every muscle of her body froze before a smile spread over her face, she thanked Marlene and not even the shining sun could have outshone how happy Antigone was at that moment.

“So,” Her gaze could be read as sultry, it could be read as stoic concern. “Should I clean that old dress of yours now?”

Antigone grew flustered. “F-fine...turn around then. Don’t look at me.”

She did so, setting aside her own nightwear to lend her some privacy as she changed. Once she had, she handed the ringmistress her discarded clothing, and shyly crossed her arms over her chest. It took a second for Marlene to realize she had also discarded something else.

“Y-you might as well clean those, too.” She murmured, her face red. “Don’t think anything of it-!”

She picked up the dirty clothes, noting a hole in the fabric. Heading into the cold night, Antigone followed Marlene curiously as she guided her around the back of her caravan where a large tin basin sat already half filled with water. She set the clothes on the ground and fiddled with a gaslamp until a warm glow illuminated the area. Marlene rolled up her sleeves and knelt down, scrubbing the stains with a coarse brush. Antigone stood by her, it did not even occur to her that she should offer her help, as she was too busy staring at Marlene’s forearms. Her imagination wandered all over the place, from Marlene pinning her to her bed with those strong arms of hers to Marlene writhing underneath her, her arms straining against rope.

 _“Creepy girl,_ ” She heard her say, snapping her out of her fantasies.

“Huh- yes, what happened?”

“What’s the matter?”

Antigone pulled the sleeves over her hands. “Nothing.”

Marlene laid the dress on the drying rack, “Do you realize how often I ask you that question?”

Shifting from foot to foot, she shivered, not answering. Marlene shut off the lamp and the two decided it was best to return to the warmth of the caravan. Antigone asked if her clothes would freeze overnight, the ringmistress shoved a quarter of a log into her small wooden stove, admitting that she had not thought of that. She shrugged her shoulders, asking if she was willing to take that chance.

“I imagine you want to go home now?”

“N-no…” She narrowed her eyes, taking pleasure at the thought of Rudyard being distressed without her home for the first time in their lives, an oddly devious smile on her lips. “May I stay here?”

"Of course," Marlene said, looking back to her bed. "I’m going to bed. You can join me if you’d like to.”

“W-why would I want to? I'm not-”

“Well, I am certainly not allowing you to sleep on the floor.”

“I-Uhm…”

“Forget it.” She said, waving her hand in dismissal. “I just thought it would be better than your cold mortuary.”

"I like my cold mortuary."

“It was only an offer.”

She was half aware of her telling her she did not have to if she did not want to, much too lost in her own thoughts of laying next to the ringmistress on her narrow bed, their bodies dangerously close together without actually touching. Finally she uttered:

“Fine, b-but you mustn't touch me.”

She climbed onto the bed and under the covers, drowsily aware that Marlene had asked her three questions. One about happiness, one about her family business, and one about the future. Antigone heard herself answering, she heard her own voice sudden rise in a ramble. She was telling her so much more, all that she feared and disliked, of her loneliness, of the family business and of her brother and of Eric.  
Everything she had ever wanted to say rose from the graveyard of her mouth. Eyes locking on the curve of the caravan’s ceiling, she recounted the theater, of how Eric had told her that Clarissa was hard to root for, how much it hurt her because she had related to her character so much. Marlene laid next to her and listened to every word, she wanted to rip him to pieces and purge him from her mind and from her heart.

“Marlene,” She whispered, her voice cracking a bit. “Why did you tell me to reject you?”

  
Narrowing her eyes, she said, “I thought perhaps you would respond differently, that perhaps you would say you loved me too and we could keep our love a secret.”

A strange smile tugged on Antigone’s lips, keeping their love a secret was precisely what she had wanted to do this whole time, though all it had done was frustrate them beyond belief. “No one has ever said they were in love with me before.”

“I am sorry for that,”

“Could you really blame them?”

“Yes, I can.” Marlene propped herself up on her elbow. “You are the most magnificent woman I have ever met, anyone who cannot see that must be a fool.”

Antigone curled away from her, wanting to take back everything she said. More than anything she wanted to sew her own mouth shut and never speak again. Pulling the covers over her head, Marlene got her message. Clicking off the lights, she honored Antigone’s words, not touching her despite her desire to hold her close, to kiss her, to show her how much she loved her.  
She stayed awake still, waiting until Marlene’s steady breaths evened out before she closed her eyes, nestling in her new jumper, hoping that maybe while she slept, the ringmistress would turn over and rest an arm around her.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you read the original version of this chapter, I'm sorry.

Antigone opened her eyes to pitch darkness. Her breathing heavy, she sat up and pressed a hand to her chest where her heart beat rapidly. Whimpering, she pulled her knees up to her chest.  
The enormity of her desire disgusted her, how could she possibly want the ringmistress now when she never thought of her in such a way before? The heel of her hand pressed to her temple, she lightly hit herself, trying to rid her mind of the remnants of her dream.

Marlene shifted onto her back, rubbing her eyes with a groan. “My creepy girl?”

“Go back to sleep.”

“What’s the matter?” She propped herself up, clicking on the string of lights.

“Shut up. Nothing. Just go back to sleep.”

The distress etched into her features was the same she had seen during their ruined dinner at Chapman’s, the same distress she swore Antigone would never feel again. She reached for her pocket watch on the small windowsill, it seemed that the sun had only begun to crawl over the horizon.

Antigone moved off the bed, making to pull on her shoes. “I should leave.”

“No, don’t go.” She reached for her, her mind racing to find an excuse for her to not run away. “I will make you tea. It is soothing, right?”

Looking back at Marlene, the sincerity in her tone took her aback. She heard herself quietly accept the offer.

Marlene set the kettle, telling Antigone she would be right outside smoking and be right back. As the caravan door closed, she dug her hands in her hair, pulling hard. Laying back down on the bed, she took up one of the pillows and clutching it close, trying her best to calm herself down. She felt as though the panic was undue, she had such dreams before, yet whenever Marlene was on her mind, a rot grew inside her.  
The kettle whistled loudly, breaking her muddled thoughts. She poured the steaming water into two little steel cups, setting in the tea bags. Carefully picking them up, she intended to bring them out to the ringmistress, as she turned around she knocked directly into her. The boiling tea scorched her chest.  
She let out a jagged breath, knowing she might cry out in anger if she did not try and calm herself down, at least. Holding up a hand to Antigone, who had been apologizing profusely, she pointed to the vanity, indicating to her to sit down. In doing so, she buried her face in her hands.

"Do not look at me." Marlene said as she turned away, unbuttoning her stained shirt.

She glanced behind her, making sure her face was still hidden away before taking her shirt off. Antigone agonized in her mistake, it seemed she did not hear her as she lifted her head from her hands.  
In the mirror's reflection she caught the ringmistress’s back. Her grimace fell slack as what she saw fell into place in her mind. She turned around, eyes darting to the whip sprawled on the floor. Patternless rough bands of white scar tissue crossed Marlene's skin, marking her severely.

“Marlene..?”

"I told you to not look at me."

"How can I not?" She got up, taking a step to her. "What happened to you?"

"For God's sake. I have lent you privacy when you changed, why can you not do the same?" Marlene growled as she pulled on a new shirt.

"I didn't mean to! I just looked up, I'm sorry- I really am. I-"

“Shouldn’t you be getting home?” Her voice firm.

“No, I mean, well, yes,” She hastily made an excuse. _“You should come take a shower.”_ She said this so quickly, slamming her hand against her mouth after she said it, that the ringmistress was unsure if she had heard her correctly.

“Say that again.”

“Well, you’re stained with tea, so I thought, because Georgie fixed the water recently,” she clutched the fabric of her new jumper. “That you ought to clean yourself up...”

Marlene narrowed her eyes, the earnestness in her voice compelled her to smirk a bit. “Are you going to join me?”

“Christ, no! I’m not- why would I-?”

“What a shame.” She frowned, taking up her clothes and setting her top hat on top of the folded pile.

Antigone walked behind Marlene as they set out into the early morning, staring intently at her back.  
Inside the quiet house, it seemed Rudyard and Georgie were nowhere to be found. Turning the corner, she pressed open the door of the bathroom, it creaked loudly. She made a cursory explanation of the nobs, telling her they were reversed. Shoving a torn towel into her hands, she left her there, not daring to even entertain the idea of joining her.  
Pressing herself against the opposite wall, Antigone sank to the floor. She listened to the water, feeling so unforgivable for just sitting there, perversely waiting. Her attempts to repress any dirty thoughts that might have come up at the idea of her. She imagined the way the water beaded on her skin or the soap slipped off of her, she thought about how Marlene’s scarred back would flex with each movement. Her curiosity about her back rose, she wanted to move her fingers gently over the scars, she wanted to kiss them, she wanted to drag her nails down her back and hear Marlene whimper.

When the house once again fell silent, she waited for a few minutes. Courage came to her as she got up.

“Marlene?” She softly knocked on the door. “May I come in?”

The ringmistress made her usual non-committal sounds, Antigone was unsure if it meant a “yes” or a “no.” Taking the risk, she opened the door. Marlene standing in only her trousers and whose button up shirt was pushed down her arms, seemed to have been examining her back in the mirror. She snapped her head forward.

Antigone backed out the door. “God, I’m sorry!”

“No, no.” She pulled on her shirt properly, leaving it unbuttoned. “You can come in.”

Coyly taking a step closer, Marlene took her hand, pulling her a bit closer. Antigone pressed her hand against Marlene’s, finding that the ringmistress’s fingers were longer. Her own dancing down the fabric of her shirt, she buttoned it up for her.  
When she was done, leaving the top button undone, she slipped her arms around the ringmistress. She grasped her shirt tightly, as if at any moment the world would tear them apart, not daring to run her hands up Marlene’s scarred back. Water dripped from her tousled hair, with her face pressed into her shoulder, she took her in, breathing in deeply.  
Marlene wrapped her arms around her, gently rubbing her back as she held her close. This unfamiliar touch, this comfort, this warmth made Antigone forget the world around her.

The universe could never let her rest. Torn away from Marlene and back into her other reality, with Rudyard standing at the open doorway, a dirt streak across his face and shirt. Georgie stood next to him, with only a bit of dirt on her cheek.

“Fantastic, now you decide to come home.” He pointed to Marlene. “She better not have used all the hot water.”

“I did not.”

“Antigone, what is she even doing here? You can’t let just anyone in here.”

“She’s not just anyone and you know that!” She threw her hands up. “Also, don’t act like I was gone forever! I only spent one night.”

Jennifer, who had been standing in the hallway out of sight, poked her head into the doorway with a giddy smile. “You slept with Marlene?”

“Oh, I do not want to hear about any of your obscene exploits!” Rudyard groaned, storming off.

 _“I did not sleep with Marlene!”_ She shouted, shooting a glare at Marlene who had snorted as she continued to dress herself. “Not like _that!”_

The ringmistress knotted her bowtie. “You did spend the night in my bed.”

“Shut up, how dare you-” Stopping herself, she turned on her heel back to her. “Actually, don’t shut up. Tell them what happened!”

“She spent the night in my caravan,” She walked over to Jennifer, leaning down to look her directly in the eye. “And that is all you need to know.”

Jennifer clicked off her recorder. “Duly noted.”

Georgie pulled her closely next to her, pressing the reverse button on her tape, sufficiently then erasing it.

“We didn’t do anything-!”

“We got the message.” Georgie held up a hand, signaling to Antigone to calm down.

“A media circus is nothing I want to be apart of.” The ringmistress placed her top hat onto her head. “I will see you later?”

“Oh, yes…” Antigone quieted. “I will see you later.” Though when that would be exactly was not said.

Right as Marlene made her way through Funn Funerals, she bumped directly into Rudyard, now wearing a clean shirt though his face was still stained with dirt. Overhearing him grumble about a water bill they could hardly afford, she stopped and pulled out a few pound notes from her inner jacket pocket. She presented them to him, telling him he could use it towards whatever addition was caused by her.

Pleasantly surprised he said, “You’re always welcome here, Marlene.”

“I am sure.” The distrust seeping from her tone, she walked out the front door.

All the while, Jennifer nudged Georgie. “So, you were right.”

“About what?” Antigone hissed.

"Rumor is that you've been quite friendly with Marlene Magdalena, ringmistress of the Piffling Traveling Circus-"

"I don't have any interest in being interviewed, particularly about that.” Crossing her arms, she added, “Who even said that?”

“I did.” Georgie wrapped an arm around Jennifer’s shoulder. “I mean, I’m not wrong.”

“This is outrageous!”

Gesturing down the hall, Georgie asked, “Why? You do fancy her, you are practically in a relationship with her, so why are you so in denial about it?”

“Are you sure this isn’t an interview?”

“The recorder is off.”

"For most of my life it never occurred to me that I could be attracted to men and women. Not until, you, Georgie, came about.” She hunched her shoulders. “But…"

Jennifer pushed her glasses up. "But what?"

"I'm not sure I'll ever be as confident and well, as happy as you two are."

"Why do you think that?" Georgie asked.

"I know Marlene cares for me, it's got nothing to do with her, but sometimes I feel so strange, like there's something wrong...with me..." She shook her head. "Ugh, forget it. I shouldn't be talking to you about this."

Jennifer looked at her with such sincerity, trying to think of what to say to her. "I think I get it..." She whispered to herself, not wanting her to hear. There were times where she felt the same strange way, but Georgie was always there to bring her back to reality. She could only hope that Marlene did the same for her.

Antigone pushed passed them, disappearing into her mortuary. Though Jennifer wanted nothing more than to go after her, to tell her she could feel the same way, to tell her of the relief she herself felt when Georgie told her there was just one other woman on this island who was like them, who loved women just as well. Georgie gripped her hand, allowing her dearest friend to hide away, wondering if she could ever get through to her, if Antigone would ever openly allow herself to be happy. 


	16. Chapter 16

“Who opens an ice cream parlor in the middle of winter?” Rudyard groaned as he burst through the door of Funn Funerals. Georgie followed close behind, spooning a paper bowl of strawberry-vanilla swirl.

Antigone closed her book, looking up from where she sat at the front counter. “That is such an absurd business venture. It’s almost like he’s running out of ideas.”

“It's still pretty good ice cream.” Georgie offered a spoonful to her, who in turn held her hand up in refusal. 

“We can only hope that he is.” Rudyard huffed, shoving off his jacket. “Or maybe, he’ll find great success in that ice cream parlor and quit the funeral business for good.” With a borderline optimistic smile, he turned on his heels back towards the door, only for Georgie to grab his arm and spin him back around. 

“It was worth a try.”

“No, it wasn’t.” The two women said at once.

Nose stuck in her book, Antigone ignored her brother’s conspiring and returned to her mortuary. Once she closed the door, she waited until she heard Georgie call out to both of them to have a good night, until the front door closed, until her mo-ped sputtered off to silence. Waiting until she heard the door of Rudyard’s room click shut, she took his jacket he had discarded on a kitchen chair and made her way into the brumal evening. 

In the evenings when Eric would close up Chapman’s he would watch Antigone storm out of Funn Funerals and down the square, occasionally doubling back and continuing in the other direction. In the early mornings as he flipped the neatly made “Open/Closed” sign, he would see her walk home - sometimes by herself, sometimes with the ringmistress by her side. Though her departures were sporadic, it was certain the following morning she was always to return.   
His greetings and ebullient waves were often ignored, though this time he was determined to talk to her. In her same dress she huddled in a jumper and what seemed to be her brother’s coat, he wound a scarf around his neck, called to her and lightly jogged over. 

“ _Eric._ ” She hissed.

“Oh, that’s new.”

Shaking her head, she corrected herself. _"Chapman."_

“It’s been a while.”

“Has it? I haven’t noticed.” She narrowed her eyes. “I’ve been busy…”

“I imagine so.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“How about we get out of this cold.” Changing the topic, he thumbed back to Chapman’s. "Would you like to come over? I just opened an ice cream parlor. First one's on me."

She echoed her brother’s question. "Why would you open an ice cream parlor in the dead of winter?" 

"There's never a bad time for ice cream."

Knowing he would not be letting up anytime soon, she accepted the offer. She groaned as the bright lights flooded the previously darkened parlor. Boots clicking against the pastel pink and white tiles, the vinyl of the stool squeaked as she situated herself at the counter. 

Eric took down a glass tulip shaped dish. “What do you like?”

“Father never let us have ice cream.”

Rephrasing the question, he asked, “What flavors do you like?”

“Chocolate…” She watched him set a perfectly round scoop into the bowl.

“Is that all you want?” His hand poised over another case. 

Hunching her shoulders, she asked. “What else is there?”

“I have vanilla, strawberry, birthday cake, coffee-”

“Coffee.” She sat up a bit more. “I-I want coffee.” 

“Coffee it is then!” Adding the scoop, he gestured to a display of sugar strands. “Anything else?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?” Setting the glass in front of her and picking up a jar of autumn-coloured hundreds-and-thousands, he nodded to two metal levers. “I also have caramel and chocolate sauce.”

Staring at the tooth-rotting offering, she merely nodded, and Eric took up her ice cream and set it under one of the spouts. 

“Caramel.” She indicated. 

He moved the ice cream underneath the second spout. Dashing the hundreds-and-thousands over the warm caramel, he finally set the sugary concoction once more in front of her, handing her a spoon. 

“Thank you…” 

“I hope you enjoy your first sundae.” His sincere smile forced her to keep her eyes on the dish. 

She brought the spoon to her mouth. The warm sticky carmel lodged itself against her teeth, thought she did not care as the sweet chill overwhelmed her. Seemingly against her own will she closed her eyes and smiled, taking another spoonful. 

Eric delighted in her joy, glad to see her so happy, it’s all he ever wanted for her and for her brother - for them to be happy. “Do you mind if I steal some of yours?”

“I suppose…” 

He dug a silver spoon into the treat. “Oh blimey, this is really good.” 

As he tried to snag another bite, Antigone brought the dish closer to her, huddling over it almost protectively. Eric raised a hand, pointing back to the menu above them. The pastel menu listed off a series of sundae combinations, each title had the name of someone in town. It seemed incomplete, the list ended with Georgie’s Sundae and a few more blank spaces remained underneath. 

“I’ve thought I’d make the specials menu based on everyone’s favorites,” He said by way of explanation. “I thought it could bring everyone together a bit more.” 

Rolling her eyes, she scraped the bottom of the glass, bringing every last bit of ice cream to her mouth. “That sounds utterly ridiculous. What if someone doesn’t like someone else’s sundae? That person is going to think they don’t like them as a person because of it.”

“That’s a little much, Antigone.”

“Are we not living in the same village?” 

“Good point.” He took up the now empty glass. “Should I add yours to the menu?”

Her eyes scanned the menu once more, catching the ringmistress’s name. Her favorite seemed to be cherry and chocolate, whipped cream and a little strawberry on top. 

“No, that’s fine.” She shook her head, wishing she had taken a closer look so she could have requested her sundae instead.

“Are you sure? Marlene might like to try it.” 

She tapped the shining counter, not responding. 

“I’ve been told you two are quite an item.”

“Have the performers told you that?”

“They drunkenly tell tales of a strange woman who has enchanted their ringmistress.” He fluttered his fingers in a jokingly whimsical manner. 

“She _is_ nice, deep down.” A blush crept to her cheeks. “She’s nice to me, at least. There is so much more to her than I initially thought.”

Eric stayed quiet, allowing her room to say more if she wanted. 

Antigone thought about how her brother often treated Marlene like an inconvenience, which was certainly an improvement to how he treated her before, never wanting her around in the first place, stifling the unfamiliar sense of joy she brought to her. “Is it selfish of me to want to be happy?”

“Of course it isn’t.” He leaned on the counter. “Marlene makes you happy, doesn’t she?”

“Yes.” She admitted. The words felt strange leaving her mouth. Silence fell over the ice cream parlor once more before Eric spoke up. 

“You know, she came in to talk to me about renting my air balloon a few weeks ago, whatever happened to that?”

“Oh, right…” Marlene’s extravagant date suggestions overwhelmed her, reminding her of the sorts of things she read about in romance novels. She could tell the ringmistress had been studying them like a guide, but she could not think of a way to address her, to tell her that talking to her over a home-cooked meal was enough. With that, she remembered now that she was meant to visit her. Pushing herself off the vinyl stool, she hastily made her way out of Chapman’s parlor only with a nervous “Farewell.” 

Curled up in the far corner of Marlene’s bed, surrounded by the shadows that kept her company, Antigone looked up at the Slovakian circus poster on the wall above Marlene’s bed. It was torn in places, dented from travel. Her caravan was a museum, unspoken artifacts of Marlene’s life displayed only for her to see. The ringmistress sat across from her, fingers dancing across the yellowing novels shelved against her windowsill, some in English, some not. There had been times where she had tried to translate the stories, but the words were never as beautiful as they were written. She glanced at Antigone, the way she pressed herself against the corner as if she could disappear if she believed hard enough. 

She picked up a thinner romance novel and tapped Antigone on the foot with it. “Would you like for me to teach you Slovak?”

“Are you actually going to teach me this time?”

Marlene flipped open the book and pointed to a simple phrase. “Say this.”

“I can’t.” 

"Come on, you can do it." The ringmistress said, handing her the book. " _Dobrý deň._ "

"D-d...I can't."

"You are not trying." Marlene took her hands. "Just repeat after me, doh-bree-denyeh."

Antigone took a deep breath, fearing mispronouncing it or worse, the ringmistress laughing at her accent. 

" _Dobrý...d-deň_." She stammered.

"Aha! You did it!" Marlene exclaimed, grinning. 

A small smile spread over her face, the ringmistress's great enthusiasm may have been a bit unwarranted, but even the smallest achievements were still achievements. Marlene leaned forward and planted a tiny kiss on Antigone's nose, murmuring that she loved her. 

"Marlene, how do you say _I love you_?"

"There are two ways, there's _ľúbim ťa_ and _milujem ťa_."

"What's the difference?"

" _Milujem ťa_ is only used for the most serious of love." She said, lacing her hands with Antigone's she repeated " _Milujem ťa._ " 

“You can’t.”

“Why must you keep saying that?” 

“Marlene.” She rubbed her nose with her sleeve. “I’ve been lying to you.” 

“What?” Her voice hitched, fearing that this would be the moment Antigone would drop her act. “About what?”

“I lied about the romance novels.” She said, sitting back on her knees. “I read them all the time.” The ringmistress did not respond, trying to calm her racing heart. "And some of those times when I told you I was too busy to spend time with you because I was working weren’t true either I was just sitting in my mortuary reading-”

“My creepy girl-”

She dragged her fingers through the split ends of her knotted hair. “-And I really like them, but I don’t want you to think that you're not good enough and I know you probably think they’re stupid-”

“ _Antigone._ ” Marlene said firmly, leaning to press her hands to her arms. “You need to understand that I think those romance novels are stupid regardless of whether or not you liked them. I love you because you care about them. You are passionate. Not only about those novels, about your job, about your life. You put so much care into everything.”

“I don’t want you to think my novels are what I want from you.”

“Then what do you want from me?”

“I-” She thought to herself for a moment. “I’m not sure anymore.” 

“So.” Marlene let go of her, her expression souring. “This is the case then. You do not want me.”

“No, that’s not it at all-”

“Then what?” 

Pulling her knees up to her chest she murmured. “You wouldn’t understand.” 

“Would not understand?” Marlene scoffed. Something in her mind clicked. It was how she jerked away from her if ever she tried to touch her. Every time they reached for each other only for the other to jerk away it felt like they were dancing in the wrong time signature. It was how it seemed she never wanted to be seen with her out where the villagers could ogle at them like a traveling spectacle. It was a shame Marlene was familiar with, a feeling she had gotten over years ago. 

She moved off the bed, fingers tearing at the buttons of her shirt. 

"Christ, Marlene, what are you doing?"

"Look at me." She turned around, once more exposing her grotesquely scarred back. "Look at me and tell me I would not understand."

The scars seemed an anomaly, not meant to be on the ringmistress's body. If she were to touch her, they would crawl onto her own skin where they belonged. 

The incongruity of her stoic demeanor and her back disturbed her. Almost daring to reach for her, she asked, "Who did this to you? Why...?"

"I do not owe you that." Marlene shrugged her shirt back, returning the buttons to their place. “You have invented this idea that people would hate you for being attracted to women, can you not see that is not true?” 

“People in this village already hate me.”

“No, they do not! Your red-haired friend does not hate you, your brother does not hate you, the one they call Chapman, the radio girl, those three teenagers, the sweet shop woman, they do not hate you!” 

“Well, what about everyone else?” Antigone spat back.

“It does not matter what everyone else thinks,” Marlene said, pressing her hands to Antigone's arms. “You were not put on this earth to please everyone you encountered.”

With no warning Antigone clambered off the bed, pressing her hands to Marlene’s jaw. The ringmistress held onto her hips, thought their faces were centimeters from each other, nothing came of it.

Marlene opened her eyes, "Why must you tease me like this?

"I don't mean to." Antigone said quietly, her voice shaky. 

There had been other times like this, these almost kisses, Marlene wanting her to take control and close the gap, but it seemed she was never ready. Even if Antigone did not want the ringmistress to copy her favorite romance novels, it was clear she did so herself. Her attempts to shut the ringmistress up with these almost kisses had become her responses when Marlene left her speechless.

Antigone sat on the edge of the bed. “How many women have you said _milujem ťa_ to?”

“Please don’t start this again.” She murmured.

It did not matter to the ringmistress that she might be her first - she secretly hoped to herself that she be her only- but it haunted Antigone that there were women before her. In the graveyard of her mind she kicked the crosses and read between the lines of epitaphs on graves, even when she was alone with her she raised the dead to speak their names. The ringmistress pleaded with her to stop trying to dig her own grave as they walked through the necropolis of former lovers. Marlene had been careless in the past, it was true, her love was once fickle and lived in the skies. Now, it was grounded and she knew she would fall in love with Antigone over and over again. She knew that darkness would always be there, looming around them, she also knew a shadow could not be were there no sun beyond the shade.


	17. Chapter 17

For the most part, Marlene was quite used to waking up by herself. It was a different kind of loneliness when she went to bed with her creepy girl by her side and woke up alone. Antigone had the proclivity to slip in and out of her days like a ghost, a second shadow lurking near.   
She ran her hand over the spot where Antigone had fallen asleep hours before. This waiting, this caricature of hide & seek Antigone was playing with her grew wearisome. Turning onto her back, she dragged her hands down her face and stared at the curve of the caravan ceiling.   
With a deep sigh, she got up from her bed and started her day. 

As it wore on, Lady Templar rushed out of her house in a huff. Always and already dressed in her finest, she passed the Piffling Royale Cinema as she marched through the streets, almost toppling over Herbert Cough as he was setting up the poster for the evening’s French Cinema Club viewing. Stopping dead in her tracks, she eyed up the poster depicting the silhouette of two women wrapped up in each other. With a smirk and lighter spring in her step, she strided into Chapman’s.

“Oh, Chappers!” She called in a sing-song voice into the empty mortuary, her features settled into a grimace at the sight of a corpse’s shape under a pristine white sheet. 

Eric emerged from the back room, plucking a set of rubber gloves from his hands. “Evening, Viv.” He said with a cheery smile. 

Vivienne’s fingers traced the line of his collarbone. “You know how our date night is meant to be tomorrow?”

“Yes, it's always been Fridays.”

“Well, I’ve changed my mind.” She wrapped her arms loosely over his shoulders, smirking at the way his face grew red. “I want to go to the cinema tonight.”

“Tonight?” He sputtered, pushing her away, “We can’t go to the cinema tonight.”

“Why not?”

“French Cinema Club has its meeting tonight.” He thought of Antigone sitting alone in the back of the theater by herself, or perhaps with the ringmistress joining her this time around. Since the incident the last time, most people knew to stay away from the cinema on Thursday nights.

“I am a cultured woman, Eric.” She pouted, crossing her thin, jewelry-laden arms. “I can enjoy the finer sides of French cinema.” 

Eric let out a breath. Antigone was going to kill him, and he would almost welcome it. Not wanting to argue with Viv any further, he agreed to the change. Gently pushing her away from him in her attempts to nip his neck, he turned to cart away the body before reemerging and throwing on his jacket. 

Antigone dug her hands through her hair as she sunk into the sofa in her mortuary. The desire building inside of her was reaching a breaking point as she fell in love with the ringmistress over and over again. There was so much she should have done with her a long time ago, but she had waited too long and the scene was over. She had fumbled through her lines, never bothering to rehearse as she was certain she would never get a starring role. Now there were no stage directions to tell her how to act, the pages of her script were blank.   
Come what may on this night. She swore to herself she would be brave enough to tell Marlene soon. 

Adherence to her routine took over as she slipped out of the house into the brisk night, street lamps leading her to the cinema. As she bought her ticket, Herbert failed to mention that he sold a ticket to someone else already, but he promised her the film had a happy ending.   
In entering the lobby, she found the ringmistress leaning over the snack counter filling a bag of popcorn for herself. Antigone loomed next to her like a shadow, she made her presence known by way of a quiet “Hey.”   
Marlene let out a gasp, dropping her bag onto the floor. She griped about her fallen popcorn, crouching down to pick up the bag at the very least. 

“Don’t you get enough of that at the circus?”

“What? No, do you think I just eat popcorn all the time because I run a circus?” Marlene looked up at her, scrunching her nose. 

“N-no, I was just-”

Marlene stood up, throwing her tarnished snack into a nearby bin. She leaned casually against the glass counter, the warm light of the marquee bulbs around the price list above fitting her in almost perfectly. The ringmistress ultimately belonged under the shimmer of the lights, Antigone thought. 

“Do you often come here?” 

“Every Thursday, actually…”

Marlene raised her eyebrows, offering her her hand. “A secret of yours?”

“I just like watching these films by myself.” She said as they found their seats in the very back row. “Though, I suppose I wouldn’t mind sharing my Thursday nights with you.”

“I think I would like to spend every night with you.” 

Before the lights dimmed, just as the ringmistress was about to kiss her hand, Antigone abruptly tore it away. Marlene lifted an eyebrow and looked to where Antigone was staring to find that Eric Chapman had arrived alongside Lady Templar. He tried to greet the two brightly, Antigone gave him a weak wave and Marlene ignored his greeting, both heard Vivienne giddily fail to whisper to Eric _“I told you so,”_  
The theater dimmed to darkness, and Antigone settled into her projectionist role. The whir of the reel quieted as the film began, Marlene took her hand once more, paying no attention to the film as she gazed at her, she knew her love was more than enough to fight off any of Antigone’s loathing spits or that pitiful face she made when she was not up to par for her discordant mind. Antigone glanced at her, catching her gaze.   
For one fleeting moment Antigone thought she could allow herself to love her as she leaned towards her. 

A small hole slowly burned away at the film, stretching and scorching it away completely. The lights flipped on, the two women opened their eyes, lips dangerously close.   
Antigone would never find out whether Herbert’s promise of the film having a happy ending was true or not. As she ran from the cinema all she could hear were three voices melding together.  
If only the film had reached its conclusion, she would have wanted to play the film again and so it would be harder for her to break away. She hid on the darkened side of the building, only to have Marlene’s hands slam on the wall on either side of her.  
Looking deeply into her eyes, neither could string together words. She could hear the ringmistress’s pounding heart, her own heart hammering so hard she was certain it would burst from her ribcage.   
In the chambers of Marlene’s heart she wanted to take her, but was forbidden to touch her lest she ruin her image. 

In the dim alley, where no one could see them, Antigone’s hands trembled as she placed them on Marlene’s jaw, crashing her lips against hers.   
Her kisses felt like desperate promises. she gripped the ringmistress’s lapels as she felt her arms around her, pulling her closer.

 _“I love you._ ” She still meant it, she always meant it every time she said it regardless of whether or not she answered. She kissed her again and again, pulling away with each breath Antigone held.

Antigone wrapped her arms around her, burying her face in her shoulder. She gripped her jacket, turning her head for a moment. Blearily, at the end of the alley she saw him; if only for a second, with Lady Templar clinging to his arm. She tore her own heart out, instead of giving it to the ringmistress for safekeeping, she threw it into a rust-laden birdcage where it belonged. She swallowed the key in the same desperate way she spat out the love the ringmistress gave to her. 

“Marlene, I’m sorry.” She murmured, shoving her away. “I can’t do this.” 

She let her run away. Marlene slammed her fists against the brick wall, letting out a strangled sob.   
With Vivienne left as Herbert’s charge, Eric tried to approach her. She warned him to not take a step closer, shoving passed him and out onto the street. Pausing under a streetlamp, the glow pooled around her like a spotlight. 


	18. Chapter 18

On the cobblestone ahead, the uneven path’s rainbow sheen reflected from the streetlights. Steely arrows in the air wilted flowers on her as the rain hid her tears. 

The sanctuary of her mortuary fell apart as she slammed the door behind her.   
Kicking down a pillar of books, she threw them against the wall, crashing them against the shelves. Jars shattered. The noise was cathartic as she began to break the dusty bottles that lined her shelves one by one, grinding glass under her heel. The jars of preserved flowers laid a bleeding portrait on the floor, she crushed those with the most vigor. Everything around her had to feel the way she did. In her rage she grasped a shard of glass, it was so easy for her to make it all stop. 

She did not hear Rudyard knock or descend the creaking steps. 

He remembered the last time he had seen her like this. Dodging a bottle of embalming fluid, he shouted for her to stop. Clutching another jar, she fell along with it as she dropped it. Rudyard sat down in front of his sobbing sister, waited patiently for her to pick up her head to inevitably glare at him.

“Go away.” She hissed. 

“No, I don’t think I will.”

“Why are you here?”

“I live here.”

“Rudyard.”

“I have not seen you this upset since our mother died.” 

Antigone shut her eyes tightly. Both knew she had been closer to their mother than anyone else. The day their mother died was the day the wall Antigone built around herself grew taller and iron clad, refusing to let anyone in. But iron erodes eventually, the bodies decompose eventually. 

“You couldn’t even begin to understand what’s wrong with me.” She muttered.

“I don’t believe there is anything wrong with you in regards to what you’re upset about.” He said, lifting his chin. “I don’t expect you to tell me what happened, but you need to know that I’m here for you, even if most of the time it doesn’t seem like I am.” 

“You don’t know anything.”

“Are you telling me you’re not upset about Marlene?” When she didn’t respond, his tone sharpened. “What has she done to you?” 

“She didn’t do anything. It’s all over and it’s my fault.” She lowered her head, pulling at the roots of her hair. “It’s been my fault this entire time.”

“What a shame.”

"Are you..." She looked up at her brother, her eyebrow twinged. “Rudyard are you trying to tell me you were beginning to like Marlene?” 

Rudyard shot a glance sideways, unanswering. 

Pulling her knees up to her chest, she rubbed her eyes. “Do you think mother would have approved?”

“No.” He said frankly. “Though I think she would have treated you better than our father.”

“It shouldn’t matter. They’re dead.”

“Aren’t we glad for that?” He crossed his arms. “Antigone. They’re not going to hurt us - they’re not alive to hurt you anymore. Even if they were, I reckon Marlene could protect better than I ever did.”

“Shut up, Rudyard.” She shoved him, her voice cracking. “You did what you could.”

He quieted. “I’m happy you’re my sister.” 

Still weeping, Antigone clasped her hand over her mouth, murmuring that she was glad to have him as a brother. Madeleine peaked out from Rudyard’s shirt pocket, he gingerly took her and placed her on her knee. The little mouse nudged Antigone’s clenched hand until she gently pet her. Gathering Madeleine in her hands, she held her close to her chest. 

The chemical tinge of preservation fluid was beginning to give him a headache, he got up. Rudyard began to help clean up the mortuary. He picked up the books, some drenched in fluid. He put them in piles, allowing Antigone to choose what she did with them. Antigone set Madeleine down on her sofa and began carefully picking up glass shards. She dropped them into a bin next to her embalming table. Using an old torn towel, she dropped it on the floor and mopped up some of the fluid. Together they cleaned the room so well that it was cleaner than it had been even before. 

She looked at her brother, expecting him to leave now that all was said and done. He could not bring himself to leave her alone, for he feared what might happen if he did. They had sworn to each other to never talk about what had happened a few nights after their parents’ funeral, but the sight of Antigone standing on a chair with a noose around her neck haunted him still. So he stayed with her, even when Antigone crawled onto her sofa and fell asleep with Madeleine nuzzling near her, he stayed there on the floor.   
He stayed there until the sun came up, until he heard knocks on the mortuary door, two voices arguing with each other above him.

“Antigone! Rudyard! I’m coming in!”

“He is _not_ comin’ in!” 

Antigone groaned, propping herself up. The door swung open, Eric came rushing down the stairs with Georgie close behind him. Halfway down the stairs, she pounced forwards. The two of them stumbled and fell onto the floor. 

“Chapman, get off of Georgie!” Rudyard scowled, standing up.

“Tell _her_ to get off of _me!”_

Georgie jerked on Eric’s blazer, her fist raised ready to deck him. Rudyard took her arm, pulling her away. Antigone rubbed her eyes, still not quite registering what was going on. Her vision cleared and she saw Eric standing up and dusting himself off, she sat up properly. 

“Why are you here?” 

“Antigone, I just wanted to see if you were alright. You know, from yesterday?”

“What happened yesterday?” Georgie and Rudyard asked in unison, the latter more demanding and the former more curious. She ignored the question, demanding they leave her alone for a moment. Georgie dragged Rudyard up the stairs, he called down to Chapman asking if he wasn’t going to respect his sister’s request to be alone. Antigone shouted back at him that she only meant them. Once the door closed shut, she got up from her couch. She crossed her arms, waiting for Eric to say something more. 

“Are you alright?” He asked again.

“I’m just fine, Chapman.” 

“I don’t believe that, honestly,” Eric said, rubbing his neck. “I was thinking maybe embalming might make you feel better.”

“What exactly are you asking me?”

“I’m asking you to come work on a body with me.”

Antigone got up, muttering an agreement. When they emerged upstairs, Rudyard demanded to know where they were going, to which Antigone snapped at him. Georgie watched the two as they left, wondering what the hell either of them thought they were doing. 

Eric’s mortuary was much more modern than Antigone’s cellar. A shiny cremation machine tucked tightly in the back, its inner surface a smooth stone, unlike her old one that rusted in places, its surface pocked with craters from years of wear. She scanned his shelves, a rainbow of chemical bottles and jars of components stood neatly across them in military-straight lines. 

“Do you not have Arsenoquid?” She asked, scanning the labels on each bottle.

He turned around with a confused look on his face, thinking for a moment she was joking. The stony expression on her face indicated otherwise. “Arsenoquid still has arsenic in it.”

“It’s the best way to preserve bodies.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re still using arsenic.” 

“So what if I am?” She set a bottle back on the shelf. “I’ve been doing this for longer than you have, don't you dare tell me I’m doing it wrong.”

“I’m not saying you’re doing it wrong, I’m saying you’re doing it in an outdated way.”

“So what then, I’m outdated?”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying at all.” He held his hands up, in an attempt to defuse her increasing temper. “I just- forget it. We all have our different ways of going about things.” He said, plastering a smile on his face. 

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“What happened yesterday?” He asked, changing the topic. “I’m sorry if we made you uncomfortable-”

“What would you know?” 

“I get not wanting to be caught snogging out in public-”

“Oh, _shut up._ ” Turning her focus back on making the initial incision, she slumped her shoulders. “I hadn’t kissed her before...” 

“Really?” His astonished tone caused her to sneer. “I mean- I just thought since you’ve been together for quite a while now-”

“That doesn’t mean I was ever ready!” 

“I guess I’m just surprised she’d be willing to wait.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Well, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“You’re not throwing everything away, are you?” Eric tilted his head. “You can’t just throw everything away just because - well, honestly I hardly have any idea why you ran -- wait. She didn’t force you, did she?”

“What? No! _Christ, no!_ ” Antigone threw up her hands, appalled at the very idea of it. “She would never - no. I was the one who initiated the kiss.” 

“Thank god for that.” 

Crossing her arms over her chest, she muttered. “Don’t you ever accuse her of something like that ever again.” 

“I just wanted to make sure-”

“She has been nothing but good to me.” She shrank into herself, jaw clenched. 

“I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.” 

“Antigone, you can’t let her go if you love her.” He said, switching on his embalming machine. “She clearly loves you, you told me the other day she made you happy. Isn’t that what you ever wanted?”

Scowling, he had to be kidding her. He could not be so blind as to not see that the way she used to act towards him was as obvious as Marlene is to her. “Listen to me very carefully, Eric Chapman. I have lived in the shadows my entire life, I have known loneliness, I prefer it.” It was a brazen lie and they both knew it. 

She said nothing more, the two of them worked on the body in silence. Once all was finished she took a step back, only half hearing what he was saying.

“Would you like to get a drink this weekend?” She tested.

“Ah, I can’t. I’ve got the pub booked for Tanya’s birthday party.”

“What, all weekend?”

“That’s what she wanted.” He shrugged.

“What about some time next week?”

Eric thought about it, glancing at his calendar. “Can’t, next week's booked with three funerals and a few other events. Oh, Calliope’s birthday is going on at the bowling alley on Wednesday, she wanted to extend an invitation to Rudyard.” He tapped the calendar square. 

Antigone sighed. “Do you have any free time at all?” 

Dragging a finger down his calendar and flipping to the next month he said: “No, it looks like I’m busy for the next few months.”

“You always are.” She tilted her head. Falling silent, she was unsure of what to make of him anymore. 

She told Eric to enjoy himself then cringed immediately after saying it and left his mortuary, now realizing how worthless it would have been. Her shame and regret screamed inside her even when she disappeared into her own mortuary, it only stopped when Georgie voiced her presence. 

“Do you want to talk about it now?” 

“No.”

“You’ll feel better if you do.”

Antigone sighed. “I do not want to discuss this, I have to remake half of my scented fluid.”

Georgie scanned the almost completely empty shelves, only a few small bottles still intact. Her books were ruined, the pages wavey with water damage, or rather, embalming fluid damage. Antigone dismissed Georgie and pulled her hair back to tie it up while she got to work.

“Come on,” She tried to reach out for her. “Don’t tell me you’re giving up. What did you and Eric talk about?” 

“Go away, Georgie.”

She took a step forward. “Don’t tell me you’re going back to-”

"Piss off. _Just piss off!_ " She shouted, grabbing her sleeve. _"_ It's over. I am alone. I always will be."

"You know what, Antigone?" She tore herself away from her and stood back. "How can you ever ask for someone to love you when all you do is beg to be left alone?"

"You don't get to say that to me."

Undaunted, Georgie tore herself away and picked up one of Antigone’s raunchy books. “It’s because of this.” 

"Georgina, if you don't give me back that book right now, you're sacked." 

"No, you need to listen to me! All this confusion and stuff is from these books!" She held up the book. "All of your ideas about what love is come from these things and they're unrealistic! You're projecting this ideal onto Eric - or, you were-"

_"Don’t you think I know that?"_ She spat. She grabbed the book from Georgie's hands, throwing it against the wall. "I know, Georgina. _I know._ I know what I've been doing. My entire life I've been sure I was supposed to like only men and now...now I...I mean, I do but- " Her voice cracked, a lump in her throat. “I am so sick of lying to myself.” 

“Haven’t you ever noticed how she looks at you?” 

Antigone scoffed. “For the love of God, how could she look at me?”

“I’m serious. I noticed it even at Desmond and Nigel’s wedding and the fire breather’s funeral and even after that whole ordeal about the shower. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

“What are you talking about?” Antigone’s voice sounded lower and more sullen than before.

Georgie paused, knowing full well what she was about to say could easily get her fired or even worse lose her friend. “She looks at you the way you used to look at Eric.”

“Shut up.” She spoke in hushed tones, her exhaustion palpable. “Please. Go away.” 

“I’m not done talking to you about this.” Georgie took a few steps up the stairs. “We’ll talk later. I’m holdin’ you to that.” 

Antigone turned away from her. As she left the mortuary, Georgie looked back at her from the top of the stairs. She shook her head, closing the door. 

She stared at herself in the cracked mirror that lay hidden in the darkness of her mortuary. She tried to see what Marlene saw in her. But all she saw was a living corpse.

Thinking about what Georgie said to her, she picked the novel she had thrown against the wall. Ripping out pages, tore her books to shreds. She picked up her romance novels and threw them into the cremation machine. Tugging down the switch of the retort, the fire in her burnt out as the flames roared over the books. She tossed every single one of her raunchy novels into the flames, watching the pages curl and burn away to ash. She stared at each cover, becoming more disgusted with it than the last.   
Her eyes locked on a particular cover featuring a woman who the more she examined, the more she found that the woman resembled her ringmistress. From her aquiline nose down to the mole that rested on the corner of her chin. She dashed it with such force it hit against the back of the machine with a loud clang.


	19. Chapter 19

In the darkness they held each other close. Each time she touched her, a laceration slashed across her body. She could hear a whip crack with each cut. Pain coursed through her, blood slid down her body every time she touched her. Slicing into their skin over and over. She moved her hand to touch the ringmistress’s face, a distant whip cracked. Her fingers gently dragged down her cheek, revealing new wounds. Each touch, each sound of a whip, each cut sliced deep into them. Still, neither let go. 

Though her eyes were open, she could not think of why. Her heart pounded, mind reeling. Marlene sat at the edge of her bed, foot kicking an empty bottle of liquor. Her blurred vision came into focus on her whip sprawled on the floor. For one seering moment she thought to pick up the work her mother had left off. 

Rather, her hours were filled with unnecessary, menial tasks. She transcribed the circus records and rules into a new book, drew banners for potential new performances or attractions if she could find the right people for it. Her hand moved absently, in her distracted state she had drawn her creepy girl.

She slammed the book closed. The ticking of her pocketwatch drove her mad, a constant reminder of the time she wasted, every second ticking away was another moment she was not spending with Antigone. Always so terrible with timing, always too early or too late as if her watch were out of sync. She smashed the clockface against the corner of her table and sat in silence, rubbing her fingers to her temples. Was she not enough for her? She tried to do everything she thought she wanted, but it all came to nothing. 

It was still early in the day, but in her blind rage she left her caravan and marched vulgarly up the street to the only place she could think of. 

“Where is the one they call Chapman?” She demanded upon entering the darkened pub. 

“I’m sorry, we don’t open unt-” Eric’s eyes widened at the sight of the ringmistress. She sauntered over to the bar and sat down directly in front of him, she pulled out a cigarette challenging the “no smoking” sign right above his head. He did not mention it, instead asking what he could get for her, despite the fact that it had hardly reached noon. 

“You can give me answers.” She said coldly. Eric looked at her curiously. “How could you let such an incredible woman get away from you?”

“What are you talking about? Antigone?”

“Yes, her. Of course, her! Do you think I was talking about your hysterical fancy woman?” She spat. 

“Hey, now hold on, she isn’t-”

“Ah, of course, you’re right,” She laughed, “You are her _boy toy_.”

Eric slammed his hand on the counter, “Did you come here to actually speak to me or are you just going to insult me? I am not afraid to kick you out of here.”

“Spare me your false self confidence,” she warned. “You could not lay a hand on me, do we need a repeat of the theater? Hm?”

“I don’t understand you, Marlene.”

“You do not understand any woman who has any substance.” 

Eric dropped his shoulders, “I mean, you threaten me at the theater over this and then you come here demanding answers about the same thing.”

“How could you have let her get away from you?”

“I just,” He took a deep breath, “don’t feel the same way.”

Marlene shot him a glare, and looked down at a knot in the wooden counter, she picked at it, not understanding how he could not see how much he had affected her. She only half listened to him stumble through a justification, acknowledging her talents, telling her of so many occurences she missed, events she could not be apart of, so many places she could have been in her life sooner. Eventually she stopped listening altogether, the resentment molded over her brain, it tore at her insides like a hunger. 

She heard herself ask him why. 

“She’s just not an easy person to communicate with sometimes.” He said it quietly, carefully.

Marlene let out a smug scoff, snubbing her cigarette right onto the counter. “Would you say she is _hard to root for_?”

It took Eric a moment to remember where he had heard those words before, realizing they had come out of his own mouth when he had told Antigone at the theater what he thought of the leading lady. Just as he opened his mouth to question how she could have known, she jeered. 

“Because even for a feeble-minded jackass you could not be more sorely mistaken!” She spat. Eric faltered, unable to speak. "How dare you let such an incredible woman get away from you.”

"Can you at least tell me why you care so much about what I think?" He shot back. 

"Gladly,” She hissed, “but I expect you to give me your full undivided attention.” She slammed her fist onto the counter. “Are you blind as you are thick headed? She cared so dearly for you and you saw her talents and did nothing!"

 _“I don’t feel the same way.”_ He threw his hands up in exasperation. “What more do you want from me? I can appreciate who she is as a person without having to share the feelings she had for me.” 

The ringmistress squeezed her eyes shut, taking deep, shaky breaths. Eric calmed, “Marlene?” He said with earnest concern. He found that he could say nothing more to her, nothing that could make her believe that he did see how incredible and important Antigone truly was. 

“She still loves you, Marlene.” was the last thing she heard before she stormed out of Chapman’s, her fingers clawing at her hip where her whip was nowhere to be found. 

Every fiber of her being was tearing at her soul, screaming at her to go back and make him see what he had missed, but what good would that do for her? She had her, or so she did, more than he ever could have had or Antigone could ever have hoped to have. Her throat stung, a part of her heard Antigone in her mind asking her to calm down, to see that that ordeal between the two was over. 

That evening as she was watching over the aerialists as they trained, a young woman fell from her hoop. Fortune was theirs as she did not fall from a great height. Instead of cracking her whip as she normally would have, instead of demanding she get up and try harder, Marlene helped her up and dismissed her, allowing her to go back to her caravan and rest. She continued to watch over them in silence, her eyes fixated on a point beyond them. All were relieved that the ringmistress seemed calmer, though the sudden disappearance of their ringmistress’s partner worried them, wondering if she would turn harsher than before. At dinner Marlene sat next to the fallen aerialist, and spent a long while talking to her. 

She watched as the last straggling performers shut the doors of their caravans. Her grip tightened over the handle of her whip as she walked off towards the small but incredibly dense forest. 

Fixated on a wide old tree, she lifted her arm and snapped down her whip against it. Pieces of bark flew off in every direction. She paused, lifted her arm and snapped down again, and again, and again she thrashed the twisted leather against the tree. Bark flew every which way, a string of groans and curses unraveling from her tongue.

Marlene flailed her arm back too hard, the whip striking her lower back. Her muscles froze in place, the corner of her nose twitched.

She slowly lowered her arm, trudging back to her caravan, her whip trailing behind her.


	20. Chapter 20

Antigone’s world grew dismal once more. The warm red and gold circus abandoned. The ringmistress had become a shadow, an ache came and went, always returning in quiet moments. She sealed herself away in her mortuary, ignoring Rudyard’s calls for her. When Madeleine found her way down to her, she would trudge up the stairs and set the mouse down in front of her brother, flatly telling him to keep away.   
Georgie was more adamant on getting her back to where she was. You could still fix a body overflowing with embalming fluid, still drain it, still bury it. 

The mortuary seemed emptier, she looked around and back down to Antigone who laid face down, clutching a pillow. 

“Where have your books gone?”

“I burned them.”

Georgie pinched the bridge of her nose. “Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you do know.”

She turned her head, with a solemn tone she murmured, “You were right, Georgie.”

“I know I was right but you didn’t have to get rid of your favourite books.” Kneeling down next to her, she nudged her shoulder. “You can’t just hide down here forever.”

Burying her face in the pillow once more, she groaned. 

“Come on, what do you think Marlene’s thinking about all of this?”

“If she wanted to see me, she would have by now.”

“Remind me of what happened,” Right as Antigone was about to, she stopped her. “That was rhetorical, you ran away from her telling her you couldn’t be in a relationship with her-”

“That is not what I said-”

“ _‘I can’t do this,’_ sounds like you were telling her you couldn’t be with her. I mean, for cripe’s sake Antigone, she’s probably heartbroken-”

Antigone propped herself up, pointing a spindly finger. “Then why don’t _you_ go talk to her since you’re so keen on what she’s feeling.”

“Fine then.” Georgie crossed her arms, “I just might do exactly that.”

“Georgina-”

“Nothing’s going to change if you don’t do anything.”

“You’re sacked.”

“No, I’m not.” 

Georgie stayed by her side, trying her damndest to get her to get up and take hold of what she desired the most. Antigone’s protests were half-hearted, never could she admit that she had once loved her too.  
By the time she left her alone Antigone had fired her over a dozen times, and Rudyard had rehired her just as many.

  
Murk was her grip on the world, but the show had to go on. Each night a faceless audience watched intently, she could not hear their applause or gasps of shock and awe. She moved through her routine blankly, spouting nonsense about how they would not believe their eyes, or even recognize the wonderment that was hidden beyond the shimmering lights.   
Sitting there where her creepy girl ought to have been was her brother, his arms crossed over his chest. Madeleine nuzzled in his pocket nibbling on a bit of popcorn. When the show concluded and the audience parted, Rudyard remained in his seat until there was no one in the tent, except for him, the ringmistress, and the performers cleaning up. 

“Do you mind if I smoke?” She asked genuinely, sitting next to him. 

He waved his hand in allowance. The two sat in silence, the ringmistress waiting for him to say something first. The corner of her lips pulled only the tiniest hint of a smile as she listened to him murmur back and forth to the squeaking mouse in his pocket. 

Finally, he asked, “Do you have siblings?”

“No.” 

“Then you might not completely understand, I’ve had Antigone around my entire life.” He paused. “I don’t want her to leave.”

“I do not want to take your sister away forever.” Smoke curled out from her nose. “I only want to make her happy.” 

“Well, I can say you’ve done a rather poor job considering-”

 _“She ran away from me,”_ Marlene hissed, smoke curling away from her, reminding Rudyard of the way a cartoon would fume in anger. A silence fell over the tent, the remaining performers scurried away, leaving them alone. “All I have done is give, and she takes and runs away like a thief in the night.” 

Rudyard’s jaw clenched. “She got rid of all of her books.”

“That does not seem like my problem.”

“It _is_ your problem, Marlene.” He stood up. “You did make my sister happy, I’ve never seen her happy.” He threw his hands up, a scowl on his face. “And now, she’s gone back to the same way she was before. When I say before, I mean before even _Chapman-_ ” He spat, “-came here. Do you have any idea of what that was like?” 

“And what exactly -” Staring him down as she stood up, she crushed the remnants of her cigarette underfoot. “-do you want me to do about it?”

“For one thing you can stop pretending you don’t care.”

Marlene took a step back, eyeing him up and down. She lifted her chin to him. “So, it must run in the family.”

“What?”

“Confrontation.” Turning sharply on her heel, she left the tent.

Rudyard’s hands trembled as he hastily made his way home. 

  
By nightfall, she trudged through the empty grounds, trying to find someone she could speak to. Laughter and music danced through each open caravan window as they turned their backs on their ringmistress and let there be a warm love among them. She approached the strongman’s blue caravan, but in the window saw the silhouette of him and his own partner. She almost thought to return to someone she had shared her bed with, but scorned herself for ever letting herself think that lowly of. There was nothing there for her, even her own caravan was as cold as her heart of stone.  
Grabbing a bottle of liquor, she stumbled out of her caravan. She could think of nowhere else to go.

“My Slona.” She staggered into the tent. Certainly, she had other elephants, but Slona was hers. Wrapping her arms around her thick grey neck, she bemoaned. “How are you the only one I have?” 

The mighty old girl trumpeted curiously. 

Sitting on the hay, her legs stretched out in front of her, she downed a quarter of the bottle all the while she lamented. The ringmistress who turned her head to those who sought pleasure could not even acknowledge what she herself desired the most. The spotlight she put on her was much too bright. She had not realized until it was too late. Their scripts were different, or perhaps Antigone was going off-script, either way there was only so much that she could improvise. She performed her heart out, a waltz solely filled with foolishness, trying to please an audience of only one who had not even appeared.   
Absently tamping down the hay with the now empty bottle, she pressed the heels of her hands to her temples. 

“Oh, look at me.” She groaned. “I am sitting here talking to an elephant.” 

Slona rested herself down with a loud thump, curling her trunk around her.   
For the first time in twelve years, Marlene closed her eyes and fell asleep alongside her. 


	21. Chapter 21

Georgie eventually did get her out of the house, taking her to run errands with her. Antigone walked absently through the village, feeling like a ghost haunting it. Drawn towards Petunia’s flower stall, enamored still by the same pretty flowers Marlene had given her, the same she had preserved, the same ones she crushed underneath her heels nights before. 

Petunia, she was staring quite intensely at Antigone as if she were still trying to determine whether or not she was a ghost, waved a hand in front of her face. 

“Are you going to buy anything?”

“Oh,” Antigone pulled herself out of her wondering, her fingers softly brushing over the thorns of a single red rose. She shook her head. “No.”

“Then can you move along? I’ve got other customers.”

She looked around her, the marketplace was deserted save for the reverend and Georgie some stalls over who seemed to be having a rather lively conversation.

Antigone looked back to the florist. “No, you haven’t.”

“But I could.”

“But you currently do not.”

Rolling her eyes, Petunia plucked a rose from the tin Antigone was fixated on and offered it to her. “How are things with the ringmistress, dear?” 

Antigone stiffened, annoyed that it was impossible to ever keep anything a secret on this island, irritated but almost comforted by how everyone and everything was connected. The comfort came from knowing she was never alone, truly. There was always someone who had something to say, whether what they said was helpful or not was more of a coin toss. There was no longer a point in pretending they were not together, no point in trying to hide.   
With that, she would play into Petunia’s nosiness. In such a long declamatory manner, she lost her secretive nature. By the end of her rant she hissed at Petunia, demanding if she had any idea what she felt like. She had been leaning over the counter closer and closer until she was nose to nose with the bewildered florist. 

“You know, I’ve never been with a woman before either.” 

Realizing how uncomfortably close she was, she scrambled away from her, dress catching onto an exposed nail. 

"I think I'd be open to it."

"You are a married woman!"

"Well, does it really count if it's another woman?"

"Yes, it does count!" Antigone snapped. "Were you not listening to me? The way I feel is real, just as real as-" She whipped her head around. "Just as real as the reverend feels about the mayor!"

Nigel perked his head up, leaving Georgie to her grocery shopping and joining the two women across the market square. 

“Good morning, you two!” He said brightly, “What’s all this shouting about feelings?”

“Antigone was just telling about her girlfriend-”

“She is not my girlfriend!” She snapped, the last words felt foreign on her tongue. Shrinking back into herself, she murmured, “Not anymore...”

He turned to her. “Who’s the lucky lady?”

 _“Marlene Magdalena,”_ Petunia chimed in with a grin, tone full of borderline disbelief.

“Oooh, the ringmistress,” 

Antigone could feel her face flush red. She wrapped her arms around herself, clutching the rose tighter, wanting nothing more than to genuinely disappear and never be found. Without warning, she grabbed Nigel’s arm and dragged him away from Petunia. Halfway home, she let him go. 

“Reverend.”

“Yes, Antigone?”

“Do you remember when we wrote Scandalliances?” She was quieter, almost whispering. 

"Of course I do, that was quite a fun adventure."

"Why did we- well, rather, why did you write a romance between a man and a woman?"

"Oh," He rubbed his chin. "I suppose that's just what's the usual in that genre."

"So then, would you say that if someone, from a young age, who always read those things would have their views on romance skewed?"

"Now, Antigone. I may be a bit long in the tooth, but I can tell what’s bothering you runs a bit deeper than us writing an erotic book where the main characters are a man and a woman." He pushed his glasses up his nose. “But to answer your question, yes, I do. This neither here nor there, but I didn’t realize I liked men until I was in my late twenties and entered the seminary.” 

“What terrible timing.” 

“Are you going to tell me what the matter is? I’m quite a good listener if I do say so myself.” 

Antigone studied the rose petals, trying to find the right words. She opened her mouth, and everything that had occurred left it, catching Nigel up to speed. 

“Can you stop and think for a second, Antigone,” Nigel said, “about what Marlene feels right now? Don’t you think you’re sort of, well, leading her on?”

“W-well, I didn’t mean to! I- I’m just-” Faltering, she finally uttered, “Am I a bad person?”

"You're not going to Hell because you ran away from Marlene." He gently placed a hand on her shoulder. "Why, I'm not even certain Hell exists! And if Hell does exist, no one goes there for liking women or men or whatever you prefer. I mean, can you imagine if I believed that?"

She pressed her hand to her mouth, suppressing her own shrill laughter. As soon as she let herself, it died down to silence. 

"You can be sure that you will regret it for the rest of your life if you keep running away from people who love you. To me, that sounds more like Hell than anything God may or may not condemn you to."

She did not respond. 

“Antigone, your fingers are bleeding.” 

“I know.” She murmured, fingers locked tightly around the rose stem. 

She walked home, keeping it in the back of her mind to thank him at a later date. Georgie caught up to her right when she clicked shut the door to her mortuary, who in turn set down the grocery bags and turned right back out of Funn Funerals. Antigone picked up one of the jars, the interior had grown murky, she looked through the glass darkly. Beyond it she found the photo from the newspaper, she pressed it to her chest and wished she could simply go back to when things were only starting. If she had known then what she knew now, she would have accepted Marlene even back at the theater.

The unfamiliar sound of the phone ringing startled her, she crept up the stairs as it continued to ring, hoping that it would eventually stop. She shook her head from her nonsensical thoughts. She ran a business, after all. Believing it to be a customer, she picked up the receiver and held it to her ear. 

“Funn Funerals, we're not as terrible as everyone says we are.”

“My creepy girl?”

She threw the phone back onto its cradle.

Marlene leaned against the interior of the only phone booth Piffling had. She had been demanding ticket payments in pence, becoming a hoarder of the coins so she could attempt to call Antigone, but it seemed like she did not want to speak with her. Even so, she shoved all her coins into the slot and redialed the number to Funn Funerals.   
When the line went dead, mechanical beeping blared in Marlene’s ear. She shoved her hands into her pockets, trying to fish out at least one more coin, but there was nothing she could do.  
She shoved the phone back onto its cradle, kicking the damned machine. Pressing herself against the booth, she crossed her arms, and kicked the phone booth once again for good measure.

Upon exiting the booth she was confronted with the same ginger haired girl who bothered her such a long time ago. 

“Ugh, not you again.” Marlene groaned as Georgie approached her. “I am still not interested.”

“I’m not here about that.” 

“Oh, for god’s sake, her brother has already confronted me.” Marlene’s arm jerked for only a second, remembering she could not use her whip to get this girl away from her. “I am going to fix it, damn it.” 

"You have to listen to me."

"No! Stay away." The ringmistress took up her whip, turning it the other way and jabbing the handle into Georgie’s chest. "This cannot be the end."   
She despised being near her, a discomfort manifesting in her heart. If only that girl knew what she had been through, and perhaps she would not be so keen on her whip. Turning away, she tried to storm off once more, only stopping when Georgie grabbed the trailing end of her whip.

Marlene jerked her arm away and scowled. "Hah. As if I would ever let you lay anything against me." A cold disgust dripped from her tone.

“Can you please just listen to me?” Georgie said, letting her go and taking a step back, “If you’re going to be a part of the family, you’re going to have to deal with me too.”

Marlene looped her whip and held it firmly as she crossed her arms. “How long have you worked with them?”

“Quite a few years now.”

“So tell me why she acts like that.”

Georgie shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket. “Like what exactly?”

“She acts as if no one cares for her.” 

"I don't know. These feelings are all new to her. I guess it’s just how she grew up. You wouldn’t get it.”

“Would not get it?” Marlene scoffed, pointing a finger to Georgie. “You know nothing of me.”

“Well, I’d like to.” 

The ringmistress was unsure of how to take that. She clenched her jaw, changing the subject back to Antigone. 

“She has potential. She is talented, pays so much attention to details.” Her fist tightened around her whip. “It is like sometimes she cannot see the value she has, I tell her she is so strong and she does not listen.” 

Georgie smirked for a second. “She’s always like that. I have to point out how things have changed for the better to her all the time.”

“And she has been the one to change things for the better, yes?”

“Yeah.” Georgie could tell Marlene truly saw everything wonderful that Antigone was, she could tell in the tone of her voice when she spoke of her how dearly she cared for her. She felt no need to argue with the ringmistress, or antagonize her in any way. 

“Are we done now?” She demanded.   
  
“Just one more thing.”

“What?” 

Georgie kicked some gravel. "How tall are you?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

She lifted her head. “So I can get your coffin just the right size if I ever find out you hurt her.”

With that, she turned sharply, leaving the ringmistress with an admittedly impressed look on her face. She returned to the main tent to find it empty save for the strongman. 

“Patrick.” She called before he could escape, “Come here.”

“Yes, your majesty?”

“Drop the majesty nonsense.” She commanded. “Tell me something, Patrick. Have you ever in all your years of knowing me seen me like this?”

“No, ma’am, I haven’t.”

“Oh, for christ’s sake.” Marlene huffed. “You are older than me, just say my name.” She gave him a look, as if to tell him to say her name right then and there but when he didn’t, she sighed. 

“Well, you haven’t treated her like you treated the acrobat or the conto-”

Marlene’s jaw clenched, and she snapped down her whip. “Do not ever speak of them. Do not compare my creepy girl to them. I have not ever treated her like I did them, I never will-.” 

“I know. Let me finish.” He said. “You can’t keep avoiding her, you need to talk to her.”

“I have just tried to, Patrick.” She kicked at nothing. “I do not know what to do.”

“Retrace your steps.” Was all he said before he left the ringmistress standing alone in the middle of the big tent. 


	22. Chapter 22

The night called to her.  
In the dark of the night she searched for Marlene, only to find her caravan just as lightless. An empty spotlight shone in the middle of the big tent and she found herself unable to find a performer who knew where the ringmistress had gone. 

Whatever had been affecting her had gotten to Marlene as she too searched the darkened village for her creepy girl. At Funn Funerals she only found Rudyard, who could not fathom where she had gone, a cursory look of the village cemetery and she found herself crouching in front of the grave of the lost fire breather, she traced the engraved letters of his name. She was drawn to the cinema even though it was not Thursday; there she found in the dim alleyway that the brick had been painted. Colors coordinated in a vague form of Antigone in her embrace. Crimson curled around black as a brilliant display burst around them, curling off like smoke. She reached up to caress the painted cheek of her creepy girl, finding the paint was still fresh. 

She left the alleyway as the night called to her, pulling her towards it in the dark while the others rested. The pale moonlight scattered shadows across the empty street, she was familiar with it, something about it however was not the same.  
She pushed open the doors and returned to where it all began. 

Antigone marched up those crooked streets searching for her once again, a lingering floated through her, drawing her towards the old theater.   
She could hear Marlene’s voice emanating from the ajar door of the dressing room, she could hear her repeating “I am in love with you,” in varying tones. Firmly, softly, almost begging. Antigone whispered the same words to herself, pressing the door open a bit more. Marlene paced the small dressing room cluttered with racks of costumes, boxes overflowing with props. She caught her reflection in the vanity mirror and turned around to face her. 

“Why are you here?” 

Antigone stood up straight, feigning apathy. “I could ask you the same.”

She took a step into the dressing room, Marlene took a step back, taking a long look at her while she stood in front of her, tugging on the ends of her hair. 

"If you don't want me, you need to tell me now," She said coldly, wrapping her whip tightly around her hand, pulling it. "That way we will not be wasting any more of our time."

“Marlene-”

"I am not good enough for you, is that it?” The pitch in her voice rose.

“No, no...that’s not-” Antigone wracked her brain trying to find the right words to say. The expression on Marlene’s face - a mix of aggravation and despair - caused her to press her hands to her shoulders, she pushed her against the dressing room table she herself had leaned against long ago.   
“Why do you make me feel this way?” She demanded, “Why _you?”_ She shoved harder.

Marlene said nothing, letting the whip unravel from her hands, it fell to the floor with a dull thud. Closing her eyes, she took everything Antigone gave her - every shove, every pull, every demand with no answer she could give. She was asking the wrong questions, and in that moment the ringmistress saw herself in her. She could be demanding the same. All her effort was new, never had she had to try so hard; and despite all of Antigone’s pushing and pulling all she ever wanted was her. 

“Why aren’t you saying anything? Why aren’t you getting mad at me?” Her voice wavered, clutching the ringmistress’s lapels. “Say something, damn it!” 

"I am everything you want," Marlene said, opening her eyes. "But you are scared."

She could not deny that that was true. "Shut up."

"No. I have given you everything I have and still you turn me away." She pressed her hands to Antigone’s arms. "I ask you what is it you want from me? You have to answer me now."

She looked into the ringmistress’s eyes. It now became clear to her that the half-lidded look she always thought of as alluring was one of exhaustion. All at once it crashed down on her. 

“You.” She admitted, her shoulders slumping. Her voice wavered as she spoke. “I want you. _I love you.”_

“Do you?” Marlene’s tone was firm, full of doubt and skepticism. “Do you really?” 

“Yes.” Still not adept with the way people kiss, she clumsily pressed her lips to Marlene’s. Her lips were soft, Antigone could feel her heartbeat slow, feeling so safe in the ringmistress’s arms. When she pulled away, Marlene smiled, though not confidently.

“Kisses will not solve this.” 

“I know.” She stepped back crossing her arms tightly around herself. Everything was so difficult. Her books were easy, her fantasies were easy. The realities of her actions made her heart ache. “I don’t want to feel like this anymore.”

“You don’t want to love me?”

“I don’t want to feel ashamed anymore.” Antigone turned her head. “You deserve someone who doesn’t feel ashamed to be with you.”

“You are not ashamed of me.” The ringmistress gestured to her. “You are ashamed of how you feel about me.”

“You deserve someone better.”

“There is no one better for me than you.” She caressed her cheek. “There is nothing for you to be ashamed of.” 

“I ought to be ashamed of how I’ve been treating you.”

Marlene tilted her head, that much could be true. “Are you?”

“Yes.”

“I forgive you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I do.” She took Antigone’s hands. “I forgive you because I know you are stronger than what is going on inside your head.” 

“How can you be certain?”

"You are here with me now. You returned here just as I did." Looking deeply into her eyes, she squeezed her hands and held them up to her chest. “I conquered my shame, and so can you.”

Antigone scoffed. “I find it almost hard to believe that you could ever be ashamed of who you are.” 

“You, my creepy girl, have made me feel ashamed for how cruel I am.”

Glancing down, she let her words sink in. “What is all of this really about?”

“The two of us.” Marlene wrapped her arms around her, and in turn she held her close. Her hands crept under her jacket, pressing against her shirt, barely able to feel her scars past the fabric. “Where is the creepy girl who stood up to me all that time ago?”

“I don’t know.”

“Find her.”

Antigone narrowed her eyes, pulling away. Marlene put the power into her hands, handing her the whip that had fallen to the floor. 

The handle of the whip felt nice with her fingers wrapped around it. “Are you still the ringmistress who fell to her knees for me?”

“I always will be.” She promised. 

  
Once again finding herself in the spotlight, her only audience member her ringmistress who sat right in the middle of the front row. 

“Say it.” Marlene commanded.

Antigone mumbled.

“Louder!”

“There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“Cry it to the world!” She exclaimed, lifting her arm as if to command the cold wind howling outside to the skies above.

 _“There’s nothing wrong with me!”_ Deep in despair she cried it over and over, slamming the whip down. Her grievances expelled with such passion that Marlene’s heart swelled with pride as she listened to her lash out on an invisible audience. 

“That’s my creepy girl.” She grinned the same as she had in that old photograph. 


	23. Chapter 23

Relaxing to the best of her ability, Antigone leaned her head against the ringmistress’s shoulder. She felt as though she were in a dream. Perhaps it was the warmth of the caravan, or perhaps it was the soft pattering of the rain outside. It may have been Marlene’s warm arms wrapped around her, or the soft cabaret music flowing from an antique record player. Perhaps even it was the tranquility that came after catharsis. Most likely it was all of these things in combination.   
Marlene sat upon a chair carved from fine oak, upholstered in red velvet. Though it was an impressive throne for the ringmistress, it was nothing compared to her lap that Antigone sat upon. The ringmistress’s whip still looped in her hand, she held it tightly. 

"I'm sorry it took me so long."

"Love takes time.” She said, reminding even herself. “I would have waited until the end of the world for you, my creepy girl."

“You won’t have to, I promise.” She murmured, grasping her a little tighter. “Though I will admit that I’m afraid you won’t be able to put up with me.”

Marlene kissed her cheek. “Nonsense.”

The caravan fell mostly silent as the record player’s needle slipped off the record. Antigone moved off to allow her to flip it. Rather, the ringmistress pulled out her pocket watch and sighed at the broken clock face. 

“I believe it is time for dinner, would you care to join me?” She picked up an umbrella near the door. “I think it is time for you to formally meet everyone.” 

Antigone hunched her shoulders, nerves growing at the prospect. She took her hand as they two huddled together underneath the small umbrella, entering a large tent near the back of the lot where the rest of the performers had gathered for the nightly meal. 

The meal having been prepared this week by the fire breathers, was admittedly good, though Antigone was certain she could taste a hint of gasoline. Sitting closely next to Marlene, she observed all the ways the performers interacted. The slow and careful way the cyr wheel dancers ate as opposed to the borderline feral way the trapeze artists did, how the knife thrower cut her food with the same knives she tended to throw directly at her subjects; she hid a smile upon catching a contortionist stealing a bread roll from another’s plate. That same woman caught her eye and scowled. Antigone retracted, curling up to Marlene as much as politeness would allow. 

After the meal was done and conversation died down, Marlene stood up, tapping a spoon to her glass to call their attention. 

“Everyone, I have someone you should all formally meet.” She took Antigone’s hand, and in turn she nervously stood up next to her, lifting a hand to a small wave. “I am sure you have noticed a change, a shadowy figure lurking next to me. Some of you are curious to know who this magnificent woman is.” Smiling, she gestured to her. “This is my creepy girl, her name is Antigone,”

A low rumble of greetings surfaced. A quarter of the performer’s already knew very well who Antigone Funn was by name, though they found the sincerity rather charming for their ringmistress. Other performers who had only stolen glances of her before now gawked at her like a sideshow attraction, eyes full of curiosity. 

“I expect all of you to treat her with the utmost respect.” Marlene shot glare at two performers who sat with their arms crossed, the contortionist who had scowled at Antigone, and another woman who she was certain she had seen with the acrobats before. “All of you.” 

Antigone held tighter to her arm. Patrick looked up at her, narrowing his eyes. He shook his head as Marlene dismissed everyone for the night. 

As they stood outside the caravan as Marlene pulled out a cigarette, handing Antigone the umbrella. 

“Do you have any idea what your lungs look like?” 

“Hm?” 

“I should show you some time, I have black lungs preserved somewhere at home.” 

“Is this your way of trying to get me to stop smoking?” 

“No. Well, sort of,” Antigone angled the umbrella between her arm and her side as she took Marlene’s matchbox to light her cigarette for her. “I just don’t want to lose you too soon.” 

The ringmistress only let out a hmph sound and smiled. “Well, in any case, do you love my insides? The parts you cannot see?”

“I love every part of you, Marlene.” Antigone said quietly. 

“Tell me, my creepy girl,” Smoke winding away from her, disappearing into the rain, “do you like my circus?” 

“Oh, yes, I love it.” She hesitated to ask about the two vexed performers. “Everyone seems rather nice…”

“They are, for the most part.” She crushed her half smoked cigarette under boot. “I would like to ask you to join my circus, not permanently, but perhaps only for a few special times. You could be a clown, like your Bijou.”   
  
“Oh, Marlene, I couldn’t...” 

A disappointed moan was Marlene’s response initially. She swiped her top hat from her head, placing it on Antigone’s. “What if I asked you to replace my role, just for one night?” 

“Marlene-”

“It felt nice? It felt nice to hear the snap of the whip, yes?”

“Yes…” She admitted . “Yes, it certainly did.” 

Opening the door, she ushered her in and locked it behind her. She knelt down by her wood stove, shoving a log into the simmering ashes. Antigone picked up the fire bellow and stuck it between the ashes and the wood, pumping into flames. 

“Can you at the very least think about my proposal?” 

“I just don’t think I could ever be as exuberant as you are.”

“Then don’t be, I am sure a halloween show may be more suitable.” She knelt down to open a wooden panel under her bed and pulled out a bottle of wine, Antigone kicked off her shows and climbed onto the bed. The ringmistress stood up, a small smile over her lips. She continued as she poured them glasses. “It can build mystery, intrigue. You would be perfect.” 

Antigone took off Marlene’s top hat, fiddling with the ribbon. The idea of luring in a crowd on a dark autumn night was attractive, though she doubted her abilities to bring interest. She only set down the hat when Marlene handed her the wine glass.   
The ringmistress relaxed, leaning on her side, resting a hand on Antigone’s thigh. Sipping in silence, their breaths almost matching, Antigone’s mind could not let go of the acrobat and contortionist, surely scorned lovers. She had promised herself and Marlene that she would stop prying into her past love life, though it gnawed at her like a restless maggot. The ringmistress’s fingers slowly bunched up her dress, resting a warm hand on her perpetually cold skin, she kept her eyes fixated on her wine glass as she asked, 

“Marlene, may I ask you something?”

“I suppose.” 

“What was your first time like?”

“Awful.” Her answer was immediate, but she said it with a laugh. "With my best friend.” She took another sip and said nothing more. Glancing at Antigone, whose expression clearly was expecting more she added, “I did not know what I was doing, and she had more experience with boys.”

“Did you have to…”

“‘Be the boy’ as it were? Yes.” She downed the rest of her wine. “It is such a stupid notion.” 

“It’s absurd to ascribe such a divide to two people of the same gender…” 

“Exactly.” 

Antigone rested her head on her shoulder. “Marlene, I am terribly nervous about the prospect of making love with you.”

“I do not expect anything from you.” 

She wanted to ask more, to know more, but kept to herself. What of those two performers? Trying to banish the thoughts, she squeezed her eyes shut. Marlene had not treated her poorly since they’ve been together, so why should she believe that would suddenly change. There were things Marlene had left unsaid, experiences that had shaped her to be the woman she was, even so, Antigone would never demand of it, nor did she really expect it from her. 

A knock on the caravan door brought them out of their quiet moments. Marlene stood up, opening the door to find Rudyard standing there, soaking wet from the rain. 

“Do you have my sister?” He asked through gritted teeth, his arms wrapped around himself. 

“Rudyard, what on earth are you doing here?” Antigone demanded, appearing next to the ringmistress. 

He shivered, groaning, “Can I please come in?”

The two of them sighed, allowing him inside. Immediately sitting himself in front of the woodstove, he turned his head, looking around the caravan, noting how rather nice it was. Madeleine poked her head out of his coat pocket, climbing up his sleeve and raising her little furry paws to Antigone. She picked her up and Marlene scritched under her tiny chin, waiting for Rudyard to explain himself. 

“Now look here, you disappeared hours ago.” He stood up, leveling his gaze with his sister. “Marlene comes by looking for you, you are nowhere to be found and what was I meant to do about that?”

“I had my reasons, Rudyard. You’re not responsible for me,” She crossed her arms. “I am a grown woman.” 

“I was still worried!” He admitted. “I didn’t know where you were. You’re always home, or you used to be. Quite frankly, I don’t like when you’re not home. We could be called on for a funeral and you could be nowhere to be found to embalm the body, and am I supposed to ask for Chapman’s help?”

“Have you been drinking?” Antigone asked genuinely. 

“You know very well that I don’t partake in that filth.”

Marlene rolled her eyes, sitting at the edge of her bed. 

“Then what the bloody hell are you going on about?” 

“I am very tired.” He groaned. “I have been running around the village trying to find you before Marlene came back for my funeral-”

Marlene obscured a laugh by a small cough. 

“-knocking on everyone’s door, asking if they’ve seen you. Let me tell you now, Antigone, that people in this village do not appreciate late night neighborly visits. Did you know Agatha Doyle owns a pistol? I feel like that should be illegal. And then _Chapman_ shows up-”

Marlene stood up, crossing her arms. “What did _he_ want?” 

“He stopped me while I was doubling back from the cinema and had the audacity to ask me what I was doing.” He threw his hands up. “Honestly, that man always wants to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong-”

“Get to the point, Rudyard.” Antigone said. “Did he...say anything about me?”

“Well, I’ll have you know he was actually quite a bit worried about you.” He took Madeleine back. “He followed me when I went to seek Georgie’s help, she was the one who suggested you were at the circus.” 

“Did he come with you here?”

Marlene interjected. “Ugh, he better not have.”

“No, I told him to go home and threatened to sic Georgie on him if he didn’t.”

“Good.” Antigone nodded. 

“Glad you agree,” He cleared his throat. “Since Georgie was right, and you are here…”

“Yes?” 

Glancing at Marlene and back to his sister, he asked: “I imagine you’re going to come home tomorrow?” 

“Rudyard.”

“What?” 

Antigone quieted. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For caring about me.” 

“Oh.” He straightened his back. “You’re welcome.” 

“Before you go,” Marlene handed him her umbrella. “Bring this back when the rain stops.” 

He nodded, thanking her. 

Antigone leaned against the doorframe as she watched her brother disappear into the dark. She sat back on bed, pressing her hands to her face. Marlene sat next to her, rubbing small circles on her back.

“Would you prefer to go home?”

“No, no…” Antigone curled up to her. “Tonight has just been overwhelming.” 

“Then let’s go to bed.” 

Marlene shrugged off her jacket. As she changed for the night, Antigone shoved two more smaller logs into the fire, figuring they’d last through the night. She watched the shadows dance over her face as her creepy girl stared at the crackling flames. 

It was not until the ringmistress fell soundly asleep that she joined her.


	24. Chapter 24

  
Bravely holding her hand in the mid-morning sun, Antigone was guided by the ringmistress to the cinema to show her the mural painted there. The colors were much brighter in the daylight, their abstract likenesses entwined so neatly they faded into each other. Antigone’s fingers traced the paint stroked that curled away from them, rounding spirals closing them off. She smiled to herself, wondering how the village hoodlums could have known. 

The sun warmed their otherwise cold spot on the balcony of Chapman’s where they ate breakfast. Lighting a cigarette, the smoke curled away from Marlene’s nose as the cool breeze pushed it towards the sea. Sitting at a table nearby, Nigel caught her eye and winked at her with a smile. She nodded towards him and refocused her attention out into the vast ocean, imagining what was beyond. 

“I’ve always wanted to see the world.” She said. 

“Come visit Slovakia, then.” Marlene tapped out her ashes. “We have so many castles to visit.”

“You would take me?”

“Of course, don’t you want to leave the island for a while?”

“Just not forever.”

“Believe me when I tell you I have no wish to permanently return to Slovakia.” 

Antigone admitted that she did want to travel with her, but hoped for both their sakes that whatever it was that drove Marlene away from her home country was not still present there to ruin them. The ringmistress said nothing, merely took a bite of her honey cake, then offered a forkful to her. Savoring the sweet taste, she rested her head on her hand, tired eyes gazing longingly at her. Her eyes flickered down to see Marlene’s hand push three red tickets in front of her. Neither said anything about it, and left Chapman’s hand in hand.   
The two of them found the local village hoodlums loitering outside, looking around rather expectantly. They seemed too concerned about whoever they were waiting for to have acknowledged Antigone’s greeting. 

That very evening as they all watched from the front row, Rudyard’s arms were crossed over his chest; though Georgie and Antigone’s enthusiasm was enough for him to smile and let out his own gasps of awe. Marlene stood tall, with each crack of her whip and boisterous introduction, how quickly the sly grin on her face disappeared when her eyes locked on the one they called Chapman; how the audience adored him more than they adored her circus, even so catching the attention of her creepy girl.   
The ringmistress certainly liked to believe she was above the rest, that she was a royal among the circus with her top hat as her crown. She sneered each time her eyes caught Chapman, cracking her whip on a whim for no reason as the performers had been perfect. Antigone’s building anticipation was much different than the rest of the audience; the exploding applause of the finale came as a relief to her. 

Antigone waited for Marlene by her caravan, having had to shoo off Georgie and Rudyard who had lingered nearby, wanting to catch one more glimpse of this alleged softer side of the ringmistress though nothing came for them to see. 

_“Hey.”_

Whipping her head towards the unfamiliar voice calling in her direction, she found the scowling contortionist and a rather meek looking acrobat approaching her. 

“Oh, hello.” She said quietly, curiously. 

The contortionist eyed her with contempt while the acrobat gestured between them with a bright smile. “We’re-”

“She doesn’t need to know who we are.”

The acrobat turned to her, furrowing her brow. “I thought we agreed we would be nice to her.”

“You,” The contortionist lightly jabbed her in the chest, “are always nice, and I never agreed to anything.”

Antigone stood there, arms wrapped around herself, clawing her sleeves. Her eyes frantically scanned the circus grounds in search of Marlene. “W-what is it exactly you want from me?”

“Well, you’re the ringmistress’s new little toy-”

Grabbing the contortionist’s arm, the acrobat hissed, _“Enough.”_

Antigone recoiled, she scowled as her heart began to race. “I am not-”

The contortionist laughed. “Oh please do tell me what makes you think you’re any different than either of us.”

“Listen, if you are not going to be nice, then you can go back to our caravan.” 

She glanced at Antigone, then threw her hands up. “Fine! Fine, I can be nice. I’ll just be quiet.” Rolling her eyes, she pulled her dark brown hair into a ponytail and used the shorter red haired acrobat’s shoulder as an armrest. 

“I am so sorry about her,” The acrobat murmured. “She’s just still a bit heartbroken…”

The contortionist scoffed. 

“I understand.” Antigone held her hands to her chest. 

“What we wanted to tell you, Miss Antigone, was that we’ve noticed quite a change in the ringmistress since you’ve appeared in her life.” 

The contortionist sighed. “And I guess we’re just...curious...to know the woman who changed her, since apparently we couldn’t.”

“So you’ve both…”

“I dated her before she did.” Tugging at the end of her ponytail, the contortionist looked down. “Well, dating might be putting it nicely. It was more like we just slept together a lot.” 

“Oh, I see.” 

“I think she was just bored, really.” She gestured vaguely. “Filling a void, you know? And well, you know,” She smirked. Balancing on one leg, she lifted and bent the other behind her neck. 

Antigone’s face went scarlet, she locked her eyes on the ground until she returned to standing normally. 

“Nearly the same thing for me.” The acrobat gazed at her with doe eyes, a smile almost permanently on her face. Her bright demeanor reminded her a little bit of Chapman. “After she broke up with me, we sort of well, found each other.”

“And then _you_ showed up.”

“Darling.”

“Sorry.”

Antigone tilted her head, “What do you mean?”

The contortionist crossed her arms. “I guess, I just don’t get what makes you different from us, why are you the one who made her change?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.” 

The two women glanced at each other, then back to Antigone. “Well, listen,” The contortionist said, taking her hands. “We’d love to talk to you more! Maybe then we’ll find out what made our ringmistress fall for you.” 

“Sure, I can even give you pointers,” The contortionist simpered. “You look a bit stiff.”

Lightly smacking her arm, the acrobat forced a smile and hissed at her girlfriend to stop. Mortified, Antigone wanted nothing more than for her to go away. Though she found herself warmed by the acrobat’s kindness. Part of her wondered how much they knew really about the ringmistress, did they know the story behind her scars? She opened her mouth to ask, but what came out was,

“It’s nice knowing there are more people like me on this god forsaken island.” 

The acrobat grinned. “Is she your first girlfriend?”

“She is my first relationship altogether,” She murmured, biting her thumbnail. “I didn’t really know before...that I was attracted to women.” 

“It’s kind of a weird feeling, right?” The contortionist said, “Like, you think you’re one way and then you realize you’re actually a different way.”

“I’m still attracted to men as well.”

“So am I, it still threw me for a loop when I realized I was attracted to women.” She snapped her fingers and pointed to her, “Now that is something I can help you with.”

“I already have someone helping me…” The disappointed look on the two women’s faces compelled her to say more, “Though I would love to talk to you more.” 

As the ringmistress turned from behind one of the tents, her eyes immediately locked on Antigone and her two former lovers. Her chest tightened, her pace quick and heavy. Approaching them, a glare etched onto her features, she demanded to know what was going on.   
Antigone placed her hand on Marlene’s arm, explaining their conversation in such a way as to calm her down before she got any more upset. The two performers parted from the, with waves and promises to make plans. The ringmistress’s scowl remained as she watched them walk off. 

Shaking her head, she entered her caravan. 

Antigone sat on the antique trunk, bending over to untie her shoes. The ringmistress’s eyes were fixated on her while her fingers clawed at her bowtie. Antigone deserved so much more than her caravan, something bigger, something more extravagant. She had given her everything she had, but she did not have much except for an intense love. Antigone looked up upon hearing the ringmistress grunt as she struggled with her tie. She got up, gently moving her hands and picking loose her bowtie and tossing it onto the vanity. 

“Do you find me to be stiff?”

“At times.” 

“M-maybe…” Antigone pursed her lips, narrowing her eyes. She began to unbutton Marlene’s shirt. “Maybe you could show me how to stop being so stiff…”

The ringmistress wrapped her fingers around her wrists, stopping her. “No.”

“What do you mean no, why no?”

“Not tonight.” 

Slumping her shoulders, she frowned. Never would she have thought that the ringmistress would turn down the proposition of sex.

“I know I’m inexperienced, but-”

“It is not a matter of that.” 

“Then what is the matter?” 

Marlene stood back. “Nothing.”

Feeling unsure of how to go on, she dropped the topic. “Will you please walk me home?” 

  
Meanwhile in Funn Funerals, Rudyard waited anxiously for his sister's return. Georgie leaned against the kitchen counter, feeding Madeleine a bit of cheese. 

“Are you going to be used to her not being here all the time?” Georgie asked.

“Only as long as she comes back in the end.” He crossed his arms. “She has a job to do, she can’t just go about the village with Marlene all willy-nilly when we have got to put the body in the coffin in the-”

“-ground on time.” Antigone said, appearing out of nowhere with Marlene by her side. She scoffed. “Of course I will.”

Rudyard nearly fell out of his chair by the two’s sudden appearance, wondering how on earth the most quiet woman in the world who strived in the shadows managed to make a woman whose entire existence demanded attention appear just as silently.  
Before he could even say anything, Antigone kissed the ringmistress on the cheek and disappeared into her mortuary, while Marlene turned out of Funn Funerals with no comment. Georgie lifted an eyebrow, and glanced down to Madeleine who shared her questioning look. 

Upon returning to her caravan, Marlene stared at herself in the mirror. This love had disfigured her, she hardly recognized herself. No longer was she the ringmistress who commanded women to her caravan to satisfy her. Sitting on the edge of her bed, she pinched the bridge of her nose. Tomorrow would be another day. 


	25. Chapter 25

Though the sun glared brightly as Marlene left Chapman’s Community Hospital, the chilled air sent a shiver down her spine as she clutched a thin envelope. Shoving her key into the lock, she clambered into her caravan and tossed the envelope on her bed. Kneeling in front of the panels underneath, she pulled out a bottle of vodka and set it aside. Picking up the envelope once more, she sat on the edge of her bed. With a trembling hand, she removed the letter and carefully unfolded it.   
Eyes scanning it desperately, a smile tugged on her lips. A sigh of relief escaped her as she collapsed on her bed, she checked the letter again to make sure her eyes were not deceiving her. A grin now on her face, she pressed the letter to her chest. 

Antigone mumbled to herself as she gathered her library books that would soon be overdue if she did not return them today, recounting everything that had led up to last night. She felt selfish for not acknowledging why the ringmistress would not have wanted to take things a step further just yet. Frankly, it surprised her. The contortionist and acrobat had been nice enough, though both seemed to have just been there to fill a void in Marlene’s heart, perhaps that same void was shaped like a certain creepy girl, or perhaps she really was no better than them, she was unsure.   
Turning sharply on her heels she bumped right into Georgie, books tumbling onto the floor. 

“How long have you been here? What did you hear?” She hissed. 

“I only just got here.” Georgie took a step back, bending down to help her pick up the books. “Do you want to get some ice cream? It’s a bit warmer out today.” 

“What time is it?”

“It’s still the afternoon.”

She glanced down at her books, the library would only close late at night. She nodded, taking the ringmistress’s umbrella she had originally given to Rudyard to shield herself from the sun’s rays.  
Walking over to Chapman’s ice cream parlor, Antigone ordered Marlene’s sundae while Georgie ordered Antigone’s, both to-go. Despite her protests, Georgie managed to drag her out onto the beach, where she laid down on her jean jacket, soaking up the sun’s rays while her dear friend hid under the umbrella. The calming waves crashed softly close to their feet, barely touching them. 

“Georgie.”

“Yeah?”

“Is it strange that I feel...younger?”

Georgie sat up. “How do you mean? Like when you go on dates with Marlene?”

“Yes.” 

“It happens.” Georgie spooned another scoop of ice cream. “I’ve read about it happening to people who don’t figure themselves out until they’re older, as if they’re trying to make up for lost time.”

“Making up for lost time,” She repeated, pushing around her melting ice cream in its paper bowl. “That’s exactly how it feels.” 

“I’ve said this before but you need to understand that it’s alright if you haven’t always known.” She gestured out towards the ocean. “There’s people all over the world right now who are coming to understand who they are, some are old, some are young.” They looked at each other.. “There’s no time limit.”

“I suppose I’m just glad I stopped denying how I felt.” 

“Suppose you’re lucky that it was Marlene who fell in love with you.” 

Antigone pulled her knees up to her chest. “I love her.”

“I know you do.” She scooted a bit closer. 

“I’m glad I have you as a friend, Georgie.” She set down her bowl. “Thank you for always being here for me.” 

She rested her head on her shoulder. They talked about this and that, until the sun began to descend beyond the ocean’s horizon, until Antigone did not want to talk anymore and got up to return her books to the library, parting ways with Georgie. 

Deep in the dusty stacks of the Piffling library, She pulled out a few books to skim from the creaking shelves. Antigone sat down with her stack, picking at the corner of the table where someone had scratched a heart into the wood. She took the first book from the top of the stack, scanning each page.  
Antigone took another book, paying close attention to this particular guide. She absorbed every word, hunching over, a blush spread from her cheeks as she read. 

"Christ, maybe I'm not as ready as I thought I was." She mumbled to herself, finger dragging along the pages. A goofy smile spread across her face at the thought of being the one to pleasure the ringmistress, to hear her moan and watch her body writhe under her.   
A librarian snapped his fingers in front of her face, taking her mind away from her fantasy. 

“Library’s closing soon.” Was all he said before rushing off to the circulation desk. 

She slammed the book closed and got up from the table. Shuffling to circulation, she refused to look the new librarian in the eye as he stamped her card and told her to have a nice evening.   
Holding the book close, her instinct was to head home. She stopped for a moment, debating whether or not she should visit Marlene. Perhaps it was not a good idea to go visit the ringmistres with a guide about sex in hand. Title facing her chest, she entered Funn Funerals only to be met with Eric Chapman being shouted at by her brother. He held up his hands, asking Antigone if he could talk to her for a moment, privately. Georgie and Rudyard looked at each other to Antigone, who was bending the book backwards with how much force she clutched it. 

“Fine.” She led Eric down to her mortuary, as he shut the door behind him, Georgie, Rudyard and Madeleine pressed their ears to the door. 

“So…” He began. “How are things with Marlene?”

Antigone threw her book on her couch and put a pillow over it. “Fine.”

“You know, I was thinking, Antigone.” Folding his hands behind his back, “That since you love the circus as much as you do, that you might join her? Has she ever offered it to you?”

“Why?” She demanded, tossing the book onto the metal embalming table. “So I would abandon Rudyard? So you can steal our business for good?” 

“No, no!” He held his hands up defensively. “No, I didn’t even think of that, I just thought it would make you happier.” 

Her jaw clenched. “I’m perfectly happy here.” 

“Are you?” He asked with sincerity. “The circus made you happy, remember when you told me in the mine shaft?”

“Shut up! I shouldn’t have ever told you that.” She groaned.

“I only want you to be happy.”

 _“I am happy!”_ The words felt foreign, but for the first time they still rang true. She glared at him, her hand now feeling so dirty for ever holding his. 

“Why did you come to Piffling, Chapman?” She took a step closer. “You never told us that.”

“Well, I just thought it would be a nice change of scenery.” 

“From what? Why start a funeral home? Why do you keep taking everyone’s business?”

“Well, I- I just thought maybe-”

“Why don’t you just go away, Chapman?” She said coldly. “I don’t want you here anymore.” 

He tilted his head at her last remark, eyes widening when her cold, somber tone changed to a shout for Georgie. 

Starting up the stairs, he said. “Alright! I’m leaving, I’m leaving.” Shaking Georgie off, he stopped to speak to Rudyard. 

“Are you going to be alright with Antigone not always being around?” He asked in earnest. 

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” He sighed, exasperated. “Yes, I’ll be fine. She’s always going to come back in the end.”

“If you ever get lonely you can always come over.” A smile crossed his face. 

Rudyard shot him a glare. “I won’t be needing your company, Chapman.”

“Eric.” Georgie warned. 

“I’m going.” He threw an arm up. “Enjoy yourselves!”

With a collective groan from all three of them, he made his exit. The same confused feeling he had during the play manifested in him as he thought about the last thing Antigone had said to him. He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets, thinking about his heated conversation with Marlene. Looking back across the square, a smile tugged on the corner of his lips, glad that Antigone had people who cared about her with such intensity. He relaxed his shoulders and sighed, wondering why the Funns could never see that he cared about them too. 


	26. Chapter 26

It was little things as time passed and Antigone began to put herself forward. They sat together working on performances and act ideas, Marlene wrote down every single one of her creepy girl’s suggestions. She had lamented quietly to herself that she missed the clowns, the ringmistress had told her stories of all the acts she had missed in great detail making Antigone howl her shrill laugh that she had grown quite fond of. She offered to make her a clown again, offering her own starring act. Antigone refused, unable to see herself perform in front of a crowd. With a gentle kiss Marlene asked if she would perform only for her as to build confidence until she could bring herself to perform in front of a wider audience and still she refused. Marlene offered her to take up her role a few more times, each time Antigone refused she placed her top hat on her head, imagining how lovely she would look as a ringmistress.

As Antigone tended to kick her out of the mortuary when she worked as to not distract her, Marlene spent time Funn Funerals, she often would speak in hushed tones to Georgie, immediately stopping conversation when Antigone appeared no matter how quietly she did so. She even grew closer to Rudyard, though she grew terribly weary of him always mentioning the man across the square whenever they spoke. He had been a factor in her getting together with his sister that was true, but he hardly mattered in her eyes and questioned why he mattered still to him. 

“He doesn’t come and bother you.” He had said. “He isn’t stealing your business.”

“He comes and bothers both you and your sister, yet I only ever hear of him from you nowadays.” 

"Now look here-"

"No, I do not think I will."

The bell above the front door jingled, half expecting Chapman to appear before them, they were surprised to see the tiny hunched-over form of Miss Scruple standing at the counter. 

“Good morning, Rudyard!” 

“It’s five in the afternoon, Miss Scruple.” 

Marlene lifted an eyebrow as the septuagenarian approached the shelves lined with urns. The cheapest ones - which really were nothing more than small cardboard boxes - caught her eye. 

Rudyard perked up. “Has someone in your family passed?” 

“No, no,” She angled her head upward to the beautifully intricate wooden and ceramic urns Georgie handmade. “I’m just looking for meself, you never know when your time will run out, you know.”

“Prepaying for a funeral, that’s genius.” Rudyard hissed to himself, partially to Madeleine, partially to Marlene. “Why hadn’t I ever thought of that? If I can get everyone on the island to prepay for their future funerals-”

He caught the ringmistress’s disapproving glare, shutting himself up. She walked over to the shelves, reaching for a gaudy floral urn that had been sitting on the top shelf of Funn Funerals for as long as Rudyard could remember. Both him and his sister despised the container, wanting nothing more than for it to disappear. However, inventory was inventory, and Rudyard did not have much of a choice than to hope someone would finally buy it and their home would be rid of it. 

“Take this one.”

Miss Scruple took a look at the price tag and gasped. “Oh no, I couldn’t, it would cost my life savings!”

Marlene looked at the price tag. It was, in fact, overpriced. She pressed on. 

“What exactly have you to lose?” She questioned. Rudyard leaned forward, an ever growing eager expression on his face. “You have no reason to be saving money after you die.”

“Well, if you put it that way…”

She handed over the urn. “Glad we had this talk.” 

Rudyard’s hands shook with a giddiness rivaling a small child on a sugar high as he rang Miss Scruple up for the horrendously overpriced and terribly kitsch urn. Before she could even leave the parlor, Rudyard stumbled his way out the front door, likely to rub his sale in Chapman’s face. 

Antigone soon emerged from her mortuary, seemingly unaware of Miss Scruple’s presence, she took the ringmistress’s hand and kissed her on the cheek. 

“Antigone Funn? Is that you?” Miss Scruple said, adjusting her glasses. “Who’s this you’re with, Antigone? Have you finally found someone, have you? Someone to love you? Have you found that, Antigone?”

Antigone buried her face in Marlene’s shoulder. “Yes, Miss Scruple…” 

“I always thought to myself, if that Antigone Funn had someone to love her, maybe she wouldn’t be so lonely. You aren’t lonely anymore, are you, Antigone? Because sometimes I think, that poor, miserable Funn girl, who never had anyone who loved her. Do you ever think that, Antigone?”

“I no longer think that, no.” She held up the hand that was laced with Marlene’s. “Marlene loves me, I love her.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful, dear! Is that the ringmistress from the circus? The tall one with the long blonde hair? Because sometimes I’ll pop in to watch the acrobats - I do like acrobats - but I’ll think to myself, ooh Dottie, that ringmistress is such a mean woman, but even mean things deserve to be loved. I’ll be doing the dishes or feeding the birds and I’ll think to meself if only that ringmistress had someone who loved her, maybe she wouldn’t be so mean.” 

With her eye beginning to twitch, Marlene gripped her hand to keep herself from lashing out against the old woman. She questioned if the elderly woman had even actually acknowledged her existence mere moments before.

Antigone intervened, “Miss Scruple, Marlene really is not that mean-”

“Isn’t she, dear? Because I often think the circus wouldn’t really miss that poor, old miserable ringmistress with her loud whip, scaring all the performers. I’ll bet some of those poor people would be grateful. Do you ever think that?”

Marlene took a deep breath. “It is certainly true, I run my circus harshly.” She admitted, caressing Antigone’s hand with her thumb. “Though, now I have the loveliest person on this entire island to…” She trailed off for a moment and thought to herself. “Keep me in place, so to speak.”

“Are you sure she’s the loveliest person, dear? Because that Eric Chapman-”

“Is a parasite upon this village, we know.” Antigone groaned, leaving Miss Scruple as she dragged Marlene down to the mortuary. 

She faced the door after she slammed it, trying to steady her breath. Taking a deep breath, she turned around to find the ringmistress on the step directly below her, now face to face. 

Marlene smiled loosely. “Hey.”

“Shut up, hello-” She blurted.

Brushing the side of her face, Marlene leaned forward to kiss her. Her kisses were not the same as the ones on the silver screen, rather ones steeped in promises. Antigone leaned forward a bit. In turn, the ringmistress grabbed the bannister as she took a step down, keeping her balance. 

Grasping the ringmistress’s sleeves, Antigone frantically said, “I’m sorry,” 

Marlene let out a short laugh, taking her hand, bringing her down the stairs. She could not wait to kiss the ringmistress again, to feel her soft lips against her admittedly chapped ones, her strong hands resting on her waist, to hold her just as tenderly. She pushed her onto the sofa, sitting next to her. Even in the dimness of her mortuary she could see how beautiful Marlene was. Perhaps not the same as the romantic heroes in her novels, but certainly, better, certainly real. Most importantly, she was all Antigone’s. She kissed her tentatively, pulling away for a moment. Catching only a glimpse of Marlene’s eyes before she pulled her back in, she kissed her deeply. 

The ringmistress groaned when she pulled away again. 

“Would you like to stay the night here?” Antigone left her on the sofa, taking a folded offwhite sheet from her shelves, promising to Marlene that it was clean despite its stains. So dearly did she want her ringmistress to be wrapped up with her as they cuddled on that old sofa that her heart broke only a little when her hinted smile faded, and she narrowed her eyes. 

“I have some matters to attend to.”

Antigone’s eyebrows furrowed. “There is no training on Sundays…”

“I have other matters.” 

“You don’t like my mortuary, do you?” 

“That is not it-”

“Then what is it?” She stomped her foot like a whining child. “You’ve never stayed down here.” 

Marlene pressed her hands to her arms. “I have matters to attend to.”

Right as she moved past her to ascend the stairs, she grabbed her sleeve. “Marlene, what on earth is going on?”

She sighed. “I have a surprise for you.”

“I don’t like surprises.”

“You will like this one. I will see you Friday, say 7 o’ clock.” She gave her a parting kiss. 

Marlene, upon leaving Funn Funerals, stared across the square, her jaw clenched. She marched across the square and entered the closed funeral parlor part of Chapman’s, where the proprietor was waiting patiently for her, alongside two others. 

Antigone’s book was long overdue, but she refused to let go of it. She read it over and over, memorizing each part of the guide, highlighting and marking everything she wanted to try with Marlene, every toy, every position. Most importantly she read the passages on communication, but felt herself too nervous to say anything to Marlene. She felt it would have been easier to entice the ringmistress and have her begin but that proved to be more difficult. It was always an almost, hands traveling over skin, desperate kisses trailing down necks. They always stopped when the question needed to be asked.  
She picked up the photo from the newspaper, longily fixated on Marlene, how far they had come from that photo and even before it. She wanted so badly to touch her, to be touched by her. Her fantasies became jumbled into nothing. The way Marlene made her feel was supposed to feel good, but her desire made her feel empty and greedy. Antigone could not decide if the ringmistress intended to work her up like this, a silent begging building inside her. She closed the book, crossing her legs.

That evening, stepping into the bathroom and locking the door behind her, Antigone kicked off her shoes. Removing the rest of her clothing, she clutched the dress Marlene had given her. She looked at herself in the mirror, wondering how Marlene could be in love with such a thing as her.   
She let the warm water wash over her, allowing herself to fully imagine the ringmistress. How soft her lips were, the way her gentle hands gripped her dress, boldly pulling up the fabric and moving up the hem to touch her thigh. Her back, she thought of Marlene’s back and how she wanted to see her scars again, whatever morbid fascination she had with them. 

On her knees in the ancient clawfoot tub she moved her hand between her legs, letting out a small whimper. She thought of the way Marlene looked at her, the way she smiled triumphantly; she admired the strength she had, the confidence she expounded when under the spotlight of the circus. Her breath grew ragged. Part of her wanted the ringmistress to grab her by the hair, force her to her knees, and make her taste her until she was so disgusted she would never want to touch her again. But, god, part of her wanted the ringmistress to be gentle, to kiss every inch of her body and make her feel beautiful. She clasped a hand over her mouth, moving her fingers faster. Lifting her head upwards, she allowed the water to wash her tears away. Her body began to shake, she abruptly moved her hand away, clawing her thigh. Her love was a shambling thing, twisted beyond her own recognition; she wanted to dig her nails into the ringmistress’s back for making her feel this way.   
The shame sat not on her chest but inside her brain. She didn’t feel like she deserved the love of the ringmistress but she clung to it and hung the shreds of her sanity on it. The guilt was a stain on her, an ugly scar. It rotted her from the inside until she was nothing but a walking corpse, longing still for her ringmistress. 


End file.
